Resume frauds rose abruptly in March this year: Study

The number of resume frauds, falsifying information related to previous employment and personal, were the highest in March this year and North India reported nearly half of the total discrepancies in the country, says a study.

According to the study by AuthBridge Research Services, a background screening and risk management consulting firm, "There was a sudden climb in resume frauds in early this year. In India hiring generally takes off in the beginning of a financial year and this time in March, the discrepancies were more than twice of what it actually is."

"The month of March saw the highest number of resume embellishments, 16 per cent," it said.

The upward trend in resume frauds was largely on the back of the recent economic meltdown. North India accounted for 47 per cent of the total discrepancies reported in country, the study said.

The western part of the country, reported the second largest number of discrepancies, while the south and the east India combined accounted for the lowest number.

The report further said that discrepancies related to previous employment were 74 per cent of the total discrepancies of which 59 per cent candidates lied about their tenure, designation, cost to company (CTC) or reporting manager.

The maximum number of discrepancies were reported from ITeS, IT and BFSI sector.

"Job cuts, lay-offs and salary cuts have been the key factors during recession instigating candidates to lie in resumes so as to bag the available job at any cost," AuthBridge Research Services CEO Ajay Trehan said.

Employers need to scrutinise candidate's profile even more carefully and watch for fraudulent credentials, such as inflated or fictional employment history or educational degrees so as to secure them from the hazardous repercussions of unsafe hiring, Trehan said.

The report is based on employment verification data across various sectors like IT, ITeS, BPO, telecom, finance, retail, hospitality, manufacturing,  BFSI among others and is a result of primary and secondary data research evaluating sample size of 10,000 cases per month.