Overall, there seems to be greater awareness among companies to mitigate bad hires by conducting background screening
MUMBAI: Here's a warning for recruiters at Indian companies — it pays to take a closer look at resumes. The proportion of senior-level professionals caught fudging details to boost their chances of being hired doubled from a year ago, according to a survey by background verification company SecUR Credentials to which ET was given exclusive access.
According to the survey conducted between January and September, 12% of senior applicants were found to have discrepancies on their CVs, up from 6% in the year earlier period. Tighter job markets and cost-cutting exercises that put high-cost resources at greater risk have contributed to this trend, said headhunters and leadership experts. Also responsible are layoffs across sectors such as IT/ITeS (information technology-enabled services), startups, BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) and telecom besides greater competition for senior roles.
"It's the high-cost resources that are often at greater risk of getting pushed out," said SecUR Credentials CEO Rahul Belwalkar. "They sometimes resort to this practice to cover up the gaps in employment." Interestingly, mid-level executives tend to garnish the truth more than juniors. About 7.5% of the former had discrepancies, while at the junior level it was about 6%. The survey covered 300,000 background checks across various levels.
The most common discrepancies are about experience, pay and position — 40% lied about tenure of employment, 30% inflated salaries and another 30% exaggerated designations, roles, etc.
"One way to explain this is that the job market, particularly in some sectors, is tight. Sometimes people, out of desperation to land a new job or switch a job, tend to exaggerate their roles or achievements and take credit for things they haven't done," said Anuj Roy, partner, digital practice at executive search firm Transearch. "Besides IT/ITeS, even if you look at captives from a BFSI standpoint, they were set up from a cost-saving perspective. The more senior you become, the more of a risk it is."
James Agrawal, managing director of BTI Consultants, concurred. "A lot of things are changing. For instance, the advent of new technologies means that the demand for legacy solutions is not there," he said.
Focus on Background
"A lot of these professionals who are looking for job changes try to figure out a way to make themselves more attractive to recruiters. For instance, there are people hiding short-duration stints, projecting their achievements in a much better light or hiding the fact that they've been laid off."
Overall, there seems to be greater awareness among companies to mitigate bad hires by conducting background screening. Apart from early adopters like BFSI and IT, sectors such as ecommerce are also checking up on resumes, Belwalkar said. Education and past employment history accounted for the bulk of these investigations.
EMA Partners managing partner India K Sudarshan said executives would be much better off being honest because in most cases, a recruiter isn't concerned about short work stints a decade ago or whether a person with a good record was laid off because the sector was going through challenging times.
"Sometimes seniors do this even when they needn't," he said. "Companies aren't accepting of white lies. They want transparency." Once discrepancies are detected in a background screening, job offers are withdrawn in most instances, head hunters said. But there can be exceptions.
BTI's Agrawal cited the example of a US-based leader at an Indian IT company who was laid off. He'd approached potential employers saying that he wanted to relocate to India for personal reasons. "One company caught him out, but were understanding of the reasons behind his actions. They made him an offer, which he took up," Agrawal said.
