Wary of bad hire, IT goes for background checks
The Hindu Business Line - January 10, 2004

They have checked everything about me. Nothing has been missed. They have enquired about me at my school, college, computer institute, the institution where I did my post-graduate diploma, and of course my professors in the US and my previous employers," says Sriram, who has just been hired by one of the big five consulting firms, in the US.

That's an experience that employees in India are increasingly set to encounter - especially in the IT sector.

Background checks have been done before - but never as extensively or exhaustively as they are being done now. "The trigger for the growth in this kind of service has come from the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US and the subsequent developments. Companies see this as a best practice as well as a security tool, since the cost of a bad hire is quite high," says Mr Yogesh Bhura, Managing Director, Quest Screening Services (Pvt) Ltd, a company specialising in background verification and screening services. "We are doing about 3,000 checks every month," he says.

Many MNCs, therefore, insist that even staff belonging to their IT vendors are checked out. That can sometimes have slightly shocking outcomes. Mr Bhura relates the case of an Indian IT vendor who did such a background check and found that nearly 20 of the 200 staff assigned to an MNC's project, had used fake certificates to get employment! This vendor has now decided to have an enterprise-wide background check.

Mr Shrinivas Sastri, General Manager, Human Resources, Covansys India (Pvt) Ltd, says that he has found the outsourced verification process paying good dividends, especially with regard to past employment details of candidates.

"The boom period in the IT industry forced many to turn a blind eye to certain due diligence practices. The accent then was to get the candidate on board as fast as possible and this created an atmosphere where value-based action was compromised.

"More than false educational certificates, we found a large increase in those who lied about their experience. We have outsourced the verification process and it has worked very well for us. When there is a responsible mediator, companies are willing to share information. We have also done it. And it has paid off," he said.

Background checks can sometimes cause casualties at top management levels. "We had to let go of senior managers of 10-15 years experience because they used fake certificates or misrepresented their experience. We have to ensure that proper conduct and integrity is maintained," said an MNC executive who predicts that background checks will soon become a pre-requisite for all jobs.