India ranks fourth in the Asia-Pacific when it comes to the number of discrepancies found in employment screening tests, says a report by HireRight, a US-based provider of on-demand background checks. According to the report, 23% of the background checks conducted from January 2014 to April 2015 in India had discrepancies,with half of them relating to education and 11% accounted for by employment discrepancies.
While there has been an increase in hiring in the last quarter, the report says the percentage of discrepancies found in the screenings undertaken has also risen from 13% in 2013 to 26% in 2014.
“India is gradually becoming a strong hub of MNCs establishing their bases. The pro-employment intent of the current government is already witnessing an uptake in terms of talent acquisition. With employment background screening being the most underrated and usually overlooked component of a recruitment process, this report is a clear testament of background verification being a quintessential process in hiring for organisations to mitigate risk and ensure quality hires,” said Edward Hickey, managing director, APAC of HireRight.
Many blame companies for not tackling such a serious issue, which is harming the country’s reputation as a preferred location for outsourcing technology services. “The issue of fudging the resume is closely related to the integrity of the employees and their employers, and will definitely harm the country’s image but a firm cannot really take legal action against the culprits unless there is a discrepancy in their educational qualification. When it comes to discrepancies in employment background then in certain cases the company gives time to the employee to address the issue and after he fails to justify himself, they terminate his employment,” said Nobby Nazareth, managing director of Evaluationz India, an employee verification firm.
According to Nasscom, around 118 companies are members of the registry with a database of 1.1 million candidates, of which 8 million resumes have been evaluated with the help of 17 third-party background verification agencies. IT firms say around 20%, or one in every five, resume in the IT industry is fake or has forged information.
Companies like Wipro and Infosys have deployed several measures, but they still fail to catch the black sheep .A survey conducted last year by Authbridge shows about 8% offers made for leadership positions across industry in India were withdrawn because candidates provided false information.
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