Background check discrepancy levels shot up from 10.29 percent in FY16 to a whopping 15.21 percent in FY17, and one in six candidates showed mismatch in resume.
The banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector has seen the maximum number of discrepancies in resumes.
According to the benchmark Annual Trends Report on Background Screening in India by background verification firm AuthBridge, employment verification followed by address verification saw the highest number of discrepancies in the BFSI space.
Overall, the background check discrepancy levels shot up from 10.29 percent in FY16 to a whopping 15.21 percent in FY17, an increase of 48 percent over the previous year, as per the report. In other words, nearly one out of six cases (candidates) background checked by AuthBridge was found to have an element of mismatch between information supplied by the candidate and actual, verified information.
Overall discrepancies in resume
The financial services industry had the maximum discrepant cases with a rate of 23.99 percent, followed by telecom/ISP/telecom infrastructure industries. It was 21.87 percent in FY15 and had dropped to 19.02 percent in FY16.
This year’s figures indicate that as job candidates are increasingly more likely to misrepresent information to prospective employers, companies need to adopt comprehensive background screening programs to keep up quality levels of their hiring.
Ajay Trehan, Founder & CEO, AuthBridge said, “Increased competition and easy access to job related information, along with a dynamic job market has led to increased faking of information by candidates, demonstrating the need for Trust-On-Demand across industries. Organisations are responding to these challenges by developing structured background verification programmes to ensure they only hire trusted candidates with the right fit.”
The data for the report just released has been collated from checks conducted by AuthBridge from FY2015 to FY2017, with special emphasis on cases undertaken in FY 2017.
The report showed that employment verification witnessed the maximum discrepancy followed by address verification, reference check and education verification respectively. Here, during employment verification, majority of the candidates were found faking tenure.
The financial services industry had the maximum discrepant cases with a rate of 23.99 percent, followed by telecom/ISP/telecom infrastructure Industry.
However, discrepancies in the internet/e-commerce/ dotcom industry decreased by 20 percent in FY17 when compared with FY16. The analysis reveals that address records are most manipulated in this industry, which saw a sharp rise this year. The discrepancy was found to increase with age group in this industry.
With respect to the genders, the discrepancy trend across genders has constantly reflected higher discrepancy rates for the male candidates compared to those for female candidates. The report states that in 2017, 15.71 percent males misrepresented information in comparison to 13.09 percent females.
Source: Background Screening in India, Insights & Trends 2017, AuthBridge
Also, police verification, database check, ID check and drug test are a few checks which are high on risk.
With respect to the different states, Sikkim & Himachal Pradesh are amongst the states with maximum discrepant cases and checks respectively in FY17. The report also said that Bihar accounts for the maximum number of education check discrepancies, while Punjab accounts for the highest number of address check discrepancies. A majority of employment check discrepancies come from Gujarat.
