Exclusive | Indian job seekers window-dressing professional life; senior executives not far behind

Over an informal interaction in the first week of April, a senior recruiter flagged a concern that he is witnessing -- window-dressing by job seekers  quite frequently in the recruitment ecosystem, especially in the higher end of the employment ladder.

He and his firm work largely with corporates and at times with some management and engineering schools. He says the problem is present across the employee value system but, on a relative term, it is getting more reflected in two categories of employees – mid-level and senior level.

“Background screening exercise at our end gives us enough anecdotal evidence that fudging of employment records has got a strong visibility in the last one year, as the talent war heats up in the white-collar job market,” said the recruiter, who declined to be named.

He said in a vast employment market like India, one faces varied challenges – from employability to talent mismatch, from underutilisation of resources to mismanagement of teams. And, window-dressing of professional profiles is catching up fast across the ladder.

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So, are employees fudging their work records and dressing up designations and other credentials -- the answer seems to be yes, at least in parts, as India's white-collar job market stays competitive and talent war continues.

“Yes, resume dressing is real and more so, off late. But look at this with what happened in the past two years. People lost jobs, there were pink slips, there were gap months and gap years and it was tough to survive during a pandemic period – financially, healthwise and psychologically. Suddenly there is a talent war. Candidates thought nobody will notice it but then you have background verification,” said Amit Khurana, Managing Director of Corporate Access, a human resource firm.

Khurana claimed that he solved a discrepancy case on April 22 morning itself for a fintech player and had encountered several in the past six to nine months. He even got one such instance while hiring a candidates for his own company.

“We are seeing it more in sectors that were hit badly during the pandemic - like banking, fintech, manufacturing, hospitality and entertainment among others. I have witnessed it more in employment records. People want to hide a scar or two and a bad spot in their professional career,” said Khurana, a former executive vice president (HR) at Yes Bank.

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Employees background verification data shows that while discrepancies are across the employee value chain and more so it is proportionately-higher in the senior level. And among sectors, employees in financials, healthcare, telecom, infra and engineering are doing it more than others.

Magnitude of Discrepancies

According to background verification company First Advantage, while overall 8.5 percent candidates were found to have fudged their CV during the quarter ended December 31, 2021, this was 7.9 percent in the previous quarter.

“In the fourth quarter of 2021, the banking, FMCG, and retail sectors had higher discrepancy percentages than the previous quarter. In the banking industry, 17 out of every 100 individuals screened had discrepancies,” as per First Advantage.

In the second half of 2021, in the overall financial services sector, these discrepancies between 15.9 percent and 18.9 percent, in manufacturing it hovered between 10.4 percent to 13.6 percent, and in healthcare sector it was in double digit as well. And these discrepancies are in several areas like education, employment, relationship in previous organisation, work history, place of stay and address among others. For example, First Advantage have found around 3 percent of the candidates screened for telecom sector have showed education discrepancies, and it is 2.1 percent fir logistics and e-commerce sectors.

In the infra, engineering and financial sectors, the discrepancies in employment was found among 8.3-8.6 percent of the candidates screened. It was between 9 percent in banking, 9.9 percent in insurance, and little over 12 percent in healthcare sector employees. Out of every 100 employment checks verified in the telecom sector, almost 19 were “discrepant”.

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First advantage data also shows that discrepancy rates for “education checks were high in the northern zone” (36 percent) of India and “discrepancy rates for employment checks (41 percent)…are very high in the southern zone”. East and west zones are much cleaner than this. For example, employment checks done in east zone candidates have shown just 5 percent discrepancies.

Khuranna of Corporate Access said in a large labour market like India, even 5 percent or 6 percent of employees’ CV throwing discrepancies in some parameters means a lot of volume. He said this is not an absolutely new phenomenon, but “earlier junior level guys used to give this headache, and now due to what happened in the past two years, the problem is well spread and runs deep in mid and senior levels too.

Juniors Vs seniors

Analysis of the First Advantage research data also shows that candidates in the 22-30 age group candidates were verified the most, and the candidates in the 22 to 40 age bracket had the highest number of discrepancies in terms of pure volume, may be because of the employees’ size and demography in any organisation.

But in a crucial parameter of discrepancies vs verified segment -- 11.5 seniors (51 years and above) of every 100 verified turned out to have discrepancies in their resume, whereas this is just seven out of 100 in the 22-30 age group and 9.9 percent in 31-40 age group and over 10.3 percent in the 41 to 50 age group employees.

Employees in financials, healthcare, telecom, infra and engineering are doing it more than others.

“If someone has a harassment case or has fudged the job role, bloated compensation, then these are serious material issues. But there are some minor ones like date of exit, which is not clashing with new companies joining, then HR managers are ignoring it. I have been told that we all are humans, anything can happen to anyone in a professional space. Instead of hiding, reveal it. A hiring manager will understand. It’s better to have a clean conversation,” said Chakraborty.