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No matter what kind of business you have – a small start-up, a growing firm, or a large enterprise – checking employees for authenticity and carrying out background screening is a significant part of the recruitment process. This protects a company from fraudsters and also helps in getting the right candidate for a vacancy. 

As per the latest Annual Trend Report by AuthBridge, fake degree submission comprises 28% of India’s educational discrepancies. When this is measured for industries, BPO tops the list with a 10.4% discrepancy and private insurance companies (in 2020). 

This makes it an absolute necessity to carry out background checks of all prospective and existing employees. Further, authenticated employee records can be shared with other companies to build trust and flag suspicious individuals.

However, the global COVID pandemic has made recruitment entirely technology-based, which has the potential for employees to forge information or provide incorrect data to employers. Background checks provide companies the opportunity to check candidates’ criminal records, educational history, professional experience and performance, and other employment-related histories.

Why Are Background Checks Crucial?

According to the global screening agency First Advantage, almost 10% of Indians report faking completion of a course, 5% report falsifying university education, and approximately 50% report submitting false documents during recruitment. 

AuthBridge’s Annual Trend Report states that this discrepancy has increased marginally from 2018 to 2020, with a boom in discrepancies in the post-COVID era. Thus, the only way to ensure a genuine candidate’s hiring is to carry out background screening and verification checks.

Possible Frauds

There are myriad ways in which prospective employees can provide fake information and commit fraud during recruitment. A few of them are:

  • Identity Forgery: With tech-based recruitment, candidates can forge counterfeited documents and claim to be someone they are not. 
  • Half-Truths or False Information: Candidates may hide crucial information about their career or lie about their previous employment to show a clean record.
  • Document Fraud: Some candidates may tamper with their resumes or salary slips to land a better position or ensure a higher income than what their experience allows.

Common Misconceptions

Both employers and employees have misconceptions about employee background verification and screening. Some of them are:

  • Only large firms should utilize background checks: Remember that hiring the wrong team is one key reason for start-up failure. A wrong candidate can cost a firm far more than a routine background check.
  • Background screening is a time-consuming process: Due to the advent of advanced screening services, a background check now takes around 48 hours to complete.
  • Screening is the same in every industry: All background checks are not the same. A driving agency would find driving records paramount, while it won’t mean anything to an IT firm or a software company.

The Solution

The only way to ensure a genuine candidate’s hiring is to incorporate routine background screening and employee verification in the recruitment process. Without it, a firm may stand to lose more than just its resources – but also its reputation (e.g., the scandal involving Yahoo’s CEO Scott Thompson lying on his resume).  

AuthBridge, one of India’s largest authentication and background verifications companies, offers digital employee background verification services that allow candidates to submit their documents online and helps HRs track the submission and verification process in real-time.

Having said this, employees have the right to know about their background checks and their results. Firms have to explain to candidates why they were not hired. Plus, candidates get a copy of their reports and have the right to prove it wrong.

By admin

Writing and blogging is my passion. Providing meaningful information to readers is my object.