The Great Indian CV Trick
Job-seekers are getting innovative while covering up the breaks in their career
Time of India, December 10, 2006

Curriculum Vitae is a big word. It is Latin. And, besides, job hunters scratch at their keypads trying to customise past experience into a potent CV.

Emmay HR chief operating officer Madhu Bhojwani says 80 per cent of the CVs either have inconsistencies or people embellish them based on what they think is attractive. It is so common a practice that Bhojwani talks of candidates who withdraw their CVs, saying: “Let me come back to you with another version.’’ It is often said that even chief financial officers are not beneath forging pre-employment certificates.

But there is a peculiar inconsistency that gains its relevance in today’s dynamic world, where employees are increasingly loyal to their own growth and requirement. It has to do with gaps in CVs, which could be an after-effect of quitting or losing one’s job.

These career breaks are then imaginatively covered up and explained away in CVs and during interviews. But such candidates may not be aware that companies are increasingly relying on verification companies such as First Advantage to dig out a candidate’s real profile.

As Daljit Singh, corporate director at Bharti Tele Ventures, says: “We go for background verification for middle-level recruitments and above.’’

It would appear companies ask candidates to furnish their CVs merely to have a good laugh at their expense. A 20-something BPO candidate recently made the grave mistake of omitting his previous company’s name in a CV version sent to an HR consultant; he, instead, showed it as a gap. By some quirk of fate, it was unfortunately forwarded to the same company and he was immediately tracked down.

Another 25-year-old candidate for an IT job also manufactured a gap in his CV as he wanted to hide his employment with a non-IT company — he thought it was not relevant — with equally disastrous results.

Candidates hide employment to portray experience only at noted firms, says Nipa Modi, director at First Advantage, Asia Pacific. But they are also known to deal with an awkward period in other innovative ways.

Background checks reveal that candidates sometimes conveniently forget to mention the exact month in the “years of service’’ column. “They may just write, say, 1997 to 1999 where they might have worked between December 1997 and January 1999,’’ says Santrupt Misra, director at A V Birla Group.
Alternatively, candidates could fill a gap of six months by stretching three months into the earlier job and the other three in the next. Misra, however, says he has also encountered an unapologetic “I am a man of leisure’’ explanation.

He informs that excuses for gaps in CVs happen across the board and are level-neutral. There is, though, a serious omission that makes verification companies essential; that happens when they have to rummage through data for a candidate’s criminal records. This is a practice that is common in developed nations and is now being duplicated in India.

A 30-something candidate was recently found to have hidden a hit-and-run accident. He made up a fictitious document to prove that he worked during the murky time. But, then, this is a fringe instance. Most reasons are more amusing than grim.

COFFEE BREAK
The list of interesting coverups is growing longer by the day
I was down with a medical problem

I had an accident

I had to sacrifice my job as I had to support the family in a crisis

I took an educational break/sabbatical

I became an entrepreneur

I left for an expedition to the Himalayas

My brother was ill so I had to take care of him

LADIES ONLY
My in-laws did not allow me to work

I needed a break to look after the children

-- Rucha Biju Chitrodia | TNN