Interview of the week
Times Ascent Online, December 18, 2007

Close to one out of every five resumes has some kind of misrepresentation" - Ashish Dehade, managing director (West Asia), First Advantage

1. How do you assess the need for background checks in the Indian scenario?
The concept of background screening was introduced in India about 7 years back. More than 90 per cent of Fortune 500 companies have a formal policy of background screening their employees. This led to background screening of their employees in India as well and/or background screening of employees of their outsourcing partners.

In the more recent times, involvement of individuals from corporate in various crimes have led to India Inc realizing the value even more for background screening all employees at all levels. Incidences of car drivers being involved in crimes have led to growing awareness of the need for background screening of vendor/contract staff as well.

2. Are there any issues pertaining to privacy for the employees that need to be considered?
We do not conduct background 'investigations' and also do not initiate background screening unless we have a written consent or authorization from the concerned candidate. All checks conducted by us are overt and legal.

We are very particular about confidentiality because of the nature of the business and have invested heavily in ensuring that our infrastructure and processes are completely insulated from potential gaps.

3. Which aspects do you consider during a background check?
The number and scope of checks vary by role, career levels or number of years of experience.

Services requested often are education verification, employment verification, criminal record check, address verification, reference check, drug testing, check against global regulatory and compliance databases, identity check, etc.

4. What are some of the common discrepancies that candidates mention in their resumes?
Through the screenings we have conducted, we have found that close to one out of every five resumes has some kind of misrepresentation. These could be related to employment or education backgrounds. Maximum discrepancies are noticed in employment checks - one in every four individuals.

These misrepresentations can be of different types. Gaps in employment not shown, compensations being increased, higher designations, fake employment being made up, employment with non-existing organizations, etc., are some examples.

From an education perspective, qualifications from non-existing institutions or from institutions that are not recognized, fake qualifications/certificates pass percentage/class being changed to show better results, year of passing being changed, etc. are the common misrepresentations. We have even exposed very senior level profiles faking IIM - Ahmedabad and IIT - Mumbai certificates!

5. How developed is the background-check segment in India? Do you find the required manpower as per your needs?
There is no organized and credible industry data available as far as the size of the background screening industry is concerned.

As far as people are concerned, it is not about specialized people but about training the right profile of people diligently on the processes for background screening. Our experience has led us to evolve our processes over time - which has happened through continuous investments in people, technology, processes and infrastructure. Such evolved processes and networks with concerned institutions and verifying authorities have helped us to manage this very complex business efficiently.

6. With this segment being relatively under-developed in India, what are some of the key HR issues that you face in this industry?
At the top of our mind is employee retention and engagement, which is not very different from most other industries in India at this point in time.

7. How would you compare the background check process in India compared to developed countries like US and UK?
Credit information, which is easily available in US and UK, is unavailable for non financial services companies in geographies such as India.

Employment checks that can be conducted at the click of a button in US have to be conducted through phone calls or faxes or emails or site visits in India. Moreover, many organizations in India do not maintain databases or records for temporary employees, which lead to unavailability of such crucial information.

Criminal background information that is available through various online databases in US and UK is incomparable with what is available in other geographies. In India, such information needs to be sought locally in the concerned jurisdictions. Also, digitization is at a nascent stage in our country leading to manual process of verification - which can be time consuming.

There are many organizations/institutions in India who, as a policy, do not share information with third parties for verification purposes. For organizations and institutions which do not mind sharing information, it is a long process as databases are manually maintained and verification process involves going through very old data maintained in paper files! In US and some other advanced countries, educational institutions have digitized databases, thus making the process of verification online and very quick.