City tops country in resume loopholes

These are trying times for employers, with growing concerns over fake educational credentials. One indication of this is the number of enquiries related to validity of educational qualifications that Bangalore University (BU) receives from private companies.

On an average, the varsity receives 30 such enquiries daily and the number, sometimes, is as high as 60 to 70. “The source of such queries range from various state governments to private companies, multinational companies in India as well as foreign countries,” said R K Somashekhar, Registrar (Evaluation) of BU.

The requests for verification come in bulk, of around 20 applications in case of some courses like Law, BCom and BEd degrees.

“Last year, there were queries from the police department of Andhra Pradesh for as many as 310 persons, a majority of whom were engineering degree holders. The rate of such enquiries is increasing by 10 to 15 per cent every year,” said Somashekhar.       
 
Only one per cent of these enquiries to BU leads to fake qualifications being unearthed. But it is a pointer to the growing concern of the industry. K E Prakash, Registrar (Administration) of the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), said that his university also got such queries on an almost daily basis. But, he was not ready to divulge the details.
 
According to a report on résumé fraud by First Advantage, a global HR services company, for the first and second quarter of 2013, Bangalore is the number one city in the country when it comes to address-related discrepancies and employment-related discrepancies (fake appointment letters, designation, experience letter, fake documents) in resumes.

It is followed by Chennai and Mumbai. So far as education-related frauds are concerned, Bangalore is ranked eighth, with Namchi in Sikkim, Lucknow and New Delhi occupying the first three positions.

“Queries are more between January and July, when companies make recruitments. A majority are for verification of educational qualifications,” said Smita S, business development manager, Jantakhoj (Bangalore office), a company that specialises in background verification.

The company receives three to four calls and six online submissions for verifications per day for Bangalore region.

Fake experience

The anxiety is evident among various companies in the City. According to Thomas Matthew, GM-HR of Global Edge Software, his company receives fake experience certificates and education certificates to the tune of 10 per cent during the recruitment process.

“We have come across many juniors with mostly less than two years of experience, giving false experience claims in projects where they have not actually worked,” said Matthew. 

An HR official of another well-known retail company in the country, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also claimed that the Bangalore office of his company came across, on an average, at least three per cent of the candidates furnishing fake certificates during recruitment.

“We usually recruit around 30 to 40 candidates every first quarter. A few of them are rejected due to fake credentials,” he said.