Pvt cos call to scan employees' history Employees' background verification firms now get calls from banks, insurance and hospitality companies, besides BPOs and call centres
Mumbai Mirror, July 31, 2006, Sanjiv Kumar

New Delhi: Increasing instances of frauds in BPOs and fake CVs in the market have forced private firms, especially in the IT sector, to approach background screening firms to verify details of job candidates in depth before they put them on the rolls.

"Besides IT and BPO companies, banking, insurance, hospitality and manufacturing firms are also keen on the background screening exercise before they recruit people. But this trend is largely confined to the private sector,"' First Advantage Quest Research Managing Director Yogesh Bhura told Mumbai Mirror.

He said what is positive is that domestic companies have recognised the need for a pre-employment check to counter attrition and the theft of data. Interest shown by other industries would definitely fuel the pre-employment screening business, which was alien to companies in India till 2001.

Estimating that about 13 per cent of people who apply for jobs claim false educational and work experience, First Advantage Quest Research, a global pre-employment background screening services firm, claimed that about 15,000 to 20,000 verifications are done annually in India. Home-grown FMCG major Dabur India Ltd takes assistance of professional and investigative agencies while hiring people at some level, its spokesperson confirmed. When contacted companies in banking, insurance and hospitality sectors, they admitted the help of background screener in recruitment process but declined to divulge the details. Pointing out that as they go global, Indian companies are opting for background check because perceived risks from having employees with dubious backgrounds could dent their global image, experts said screeners conduct checks like education, employment, database and criminal records, if any, and these tests are conducted with the full knowledge of a prospective employee.

Talking to this newspaper, Team Computers HRD Director C V Prakash said the company has hired a Mumbai-based background screener to validate the claims of candidates in terms of experience, exposure and work profile before their recruitment. Similarly, IT majors like TCS, Patni, CSC and Electronic Data Systems do it too.

Currently, large IT firms spend anywhere between Rs 3,000 and Rs 6,000 per candidate, while mid-size companies shell out between Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,000 per candidate. Bangalore-based recruitment firm TVA Infotech revealed that of 100 false bio-data, 99 candidates fail to make entry into any company, while one smart chap with fake CV manages the show. "But hiring volume in the IT and BPO is so large that even a small percentage tends to get magnified," TVA Infotech CEO Gautam Sinha said.

"Companies should share data on the people blacklisted to stop this nuisance," Sinha added.