TOP reasons why candidates fake CVs

Praveen Kumar Parameswaran, India Head, Sourcing, UST Global lists seven reasons why candidates fake their resume and also suggests ways to identify them.

Fake resumes have been one of the most common challenges faced by companies.

The challenge is existent across the globe. Candidates lie on their resume about various things like their education, years of experience, previous salary structure and even their expertise.

Though employers across sectors meet with such challenges, the IT sector is more vulnerable to fake resumes of candidates.

Here are top seven reasons why candidates fake on their resume and how a recruiter can recognise fake resumes. Read on.

IT / ITeS sector is one of the primary contributors to the rapidly growing and relatively secure Indian market. With fast growth of IT industry in India, the demand for good talent is also on the rise.

Though, there has been a constant increase in the number of IT / ITeS colleges in India, the industry demand still exceeds the supply of qualified candidates.

Adding to the woes of recruiters, the quality of candidates too remains a challenge. This makes the competition stiffer and thus increases the possibility of candidates faking on their resume.

Candidates tend to fake about their area of expertise and also about the technology that they are versed with.

In the age of increased communication and globalisation, emergence of new technology frequently is inevitable.

The IT sector is expected to be up to date with the emerging technology to keep pace with the international market. This creates the demand for professionals who are aware of the new technology and is able to efficiently utilise his / her knowledge of the technology. This trend is also seen to have encouraged candidates to fake on their resumes.

Candidates think that people usually don't know much about emerging technology and thus they are less likely to be caught for faking on their resume.

Outsourcing the process of candidate sourcing to contracting agencies is a common trend in the IT sector.

Usually, the companies reach out to the agencies to find candidates with expertise and knowledge that they require for a particular assignment or project.

Since, the candidates are referred through the agencies, it is less likely that they get caught. The candidates find it easier to lie in this case and consider it a short cut towards a better career.

Since, resume faking has become a common place these days, employers are required to do their best to keep a check on such entries and ensure that genuine candidates get selected. There are various ways that can be used by employers to reduce the possibility of fake candidates getting selected.

And here's how employers identify FAKE CVs...

This method that can be used by employers to eliminate fake resumes at the initial stage. The method includes evaluation of a candidate's resume by inquiring at the contact details provided in the resume.

Calling the number at various points of time and from different numbers reinforces the genuineness of the candidate. This way one can disable the qualification of the most apparent fake resumes at the first step.

An alert interview panel can identify fake candidates during the interview process. A detailed technology-specific interview will give an idea whether the information about the technology mentioned in the resume of the candidate is genuine or not.

Apart from this, other information like, the person's job profile in the previous company, salary details etc. can be procured by asking certain pointed questions.

The next step to make sure that a candidate is not faking on the resume can be background verification.

This is the method widely adopted by most of the recruiters. Here the recruiter reaches out to the candidate's previous employers, his / her educational institution and other references to check for the genuineness of a candidate.

Though most of the time recruiters get correct information about the candidate, chances are that the candidate might fake the references too.

To overcome this, a recruiter can make use of the technology and search on the social networking sites to understand the genuineness of candidates. Social sites will also reveal various details of a candidate's character including behavioural pattern that may/may not conflict with the position s/he has applied for.

Contracting agencies provide appropriate candidates to companies to manage specific projects of the company. Since the agency holds all the rights of managing their candidates and their appraisals as well, it becomes difficult for companies to identify fake candidates.

Identification becomes even more difficult when a large number of candidates come through the agencies for large projects. The best way to deal with this situation for a company is to outsource the project to the agencies and have the final project delivered.

This will save the company from the pain and trouble of dealing with outsourced candidates, who they suspect of being fake.