HYDERABAD — December 2005:

According to a recent report from Asian News International, employers need to be wary when they employ people on the basis of their impressive résumés. The reason — one in four persons lies about his or her curriculum vitae.

The study comes out with some startling revelations: that on an average a jobseeker tells three lies and in many cases recruits confessed to making up more than half their professional records.

These facts are reiterated by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, USA, which says that nearly a quarter of the companies never bothered to check up candidates' references or qualifications.

Four years ago, yet another research by Mori showed that 7.5 million of Britain's 25.3 million workers had misled their potential employers. The figure covered all ages and management levels and the institute put the cost to employers at an alarming £1 billion!

Says Sai Gundavelli, CEO, Solix Technologies, "In a recent incident at Veritas, USA, the management found out, after nearly 10 years, that the CFO's résumé mentioned an MBA from Stanford, whereas he never went there at all.".

Adds Harish Bhattiprolu, Director Sale, Kenexa Technologies, "It has been observed the IT (sector) is not the only one to have spawned a large number of résumés which contain falsified content but the practice is prevalent in other industries as well. And it is also true that the practice is not new."

As jobseekers are using desperate means to reach their ultimate goal, résumés are becoming more attractive and impressive overnight. "There are usually two types of faking — exaggeration of experience and excellent, high-end qualifications. A 12-month work experience may stretch to two years or a four-month project extended to eight months on the CV. There are also cases when applicants write certain skills or qualifications which they don't really possess," says Gautam Singh, CEO, TVA Infotech.

Therefore, industry experts advise the verification of all documents at the time of hiring as it may save the recruiter from a lot of unforeseen trouble in future. But how do companies crosscheck a recruit's credentials? Says Anuradha Kanitkar, COO, Harbinger Group of Companies, "An experienced eye can always find gaps. For instance, the period spent with a company vis-à-vis the projects (their durations, level, size), the growth of the person within a company vis-à-vis the years spent in the company etc. During an interview one can dig for more details."

Corroborates QAI's General Manager HR, Aravinda Dahiya, "The way we ascertain the same is through multiple rounds of face-to-face interviews. Extensive behavioural interviews help us check the candidates' credentials. Our recruitment forms are so designed that candidates have to replicate the information from the résumé so they must be really smart to fake it through all these!"

Interestingly, different companies implement different strategies. At Max New York Life Insurance, for instance, a comprehensive process of competency based interviews are followed. They also rely on reference checks, which are different for different levels. For instance, for junior levels, checks are done by consultants and for senior levels, consultants send them confidential reports on the potential recruit.

"Going through these processes insulates us from any possible résumé misrepresentations," says Rajit Mehta, Executive Director, Training and Internal Communication, Max New York Life Insurance Company. "We do not believe in insisting on seeing academic certificates as we strongly believe that every relationship should be based on trust."

There are also some companies like Solix Technologies, which use their own industry network to filter résumés. Explains Gundavelli, "It is a very important step towards building a good company. Apart from the routine check-up, we also use an enterprise recruitment software from SITI Corp, which helps us greatly in managing this entire process in a very effective manner."

Kenexa, however, uses a multi-source strategy. It applies a sourcing quantum to each job description on the basis of previous experience and changes the strategy of sourcing at periodic intervals based on careful collection of metrics on source effectiveness. "A good mix of such evaluation gives us a fair measure of the person's antecedents," reiterates Bhattiprolu.

A few companies, however, completely fall back on head-hunters. As Lt Col (Retd) Mohan Mamtani, Managing Director, The Grand Placements claims, his group 'stalks' potential candidates for almost six months to a year to establish their credibility.

"The types of questions we ask pertain to their competencies in a particular area or position. Depending upon the responsibilities of the job and the work environment, we do ask candidates to describe a time that required problem-solving skills, adaptability, leadership, conflict resolution, multi-tasking, initiative, or stress management. We normally do not consider candidates who cannot quantify their achievements," he said.

And since faking credentials is on the rise, hiring through referral is high on the cards. Explains Jayanthi Ruben, HR Executive, Aventail Infotech Pvt Ltd, "There is no better endorsement of a company than when an employee refers his/her friend. Since existing employees usually have a very good grasp of what is needed to succeed in the company, there is a very high chance that they are referring a candidate with similar qualities and so the confidence in the new employee is higher."

So if you are faking your résumé to make it more impressive, it's not worth the risk. Remember, your two-page résumé not only documents your achievements and qualifications but also reflects your integrity, honesty and commitment.

Contact:
Solix Technologies, Inc.
Kalyan C. Manyam
Kalyan.manyam@solix.com