Incorrect tenure, education qualification tops background screening discrepancies

According to First Advantage's background screening survey, discrepancies related to employment, address and education were at 52.1%, 18.4% and 4% respectively

Fake documents of education qualification, incorrect tenure of employment and faking about past employment are the top discrepancies found in background screening of employees, said a survey.

Discrepancy level for the first quarter of 2015 have gone up to 11.4 per centfrom 9.6 per cent in the same quarter a year ago, and 10.7 per centin the fourth quarter of 2014.

According to First Advantage's first quarter background screening survey, discrepancies related to employment, address and education were at 52.1 per cent,18.4 per cent and 4 per cent respectively. The remaining discrepancies of 25.5 per cent, were related to criminal, document,investigation, database, reference, etc.

Within the employment segment, incorrect tenure of employment (31 per cent) emerged as an area with highest discrepancies, followed by incomplete exit formalities (17 per cent), supervisor feedback (9 per cent), inflated designation (8 per cent), and fake employee (7 per cent) among others.

Among the business verticals, discrepancy rates are highest among banking financial services and insurance (BFSI) at 40 per cent followed by IT sector at 27 per cent.

"BFSIand IT have traditionally been sectors that have used background screening as a must. BFSI more because of the security issues and ITbecause several global customers mandate such screening ofcandidates. Though sectors like retail is warming up to the trend,awareness within the various industries is still very low," said Shreya Krishnan, head, marketing and communications at First Advantage India.

Interms of region, while Bangaluru has been the hot-bed forentrepreneurial activity, it has also topped the chart in employmentrelated discrepancies for the first quarter of 2015. Followed byMumbai and Chennai. Meanwhile New Delhi tops the chart in educationrelated discrepancies, followed by Namchi (Sikkim) and Kanpur.

"Inthe recent times we have seen an increased incidence of employeesfaking on incorrect tenure. They are using this to cover the gapsbetween two tenures or while shifting jobs. Gap verification hasbecome a big part of background verification these days," addedKrishnan.

Thesurvey stated that among education discrepancies, fake documents formed the biggest chunk (46 per cent), non completion of course went up to 19 per cent for the first quarter and fake education institutes (7 per cent) topped the charts.

In Q1 of 2015 - associate level discrepancy continues to top the graph at 65 per cent, which means out of every 100 discrepancy cases - 65 are from the associate level, it is followed by middle management at 18 per cent, first level supervisor at 12 per cent, apprentice/ trainee/ intern at 3 per cent and senior management at 2 per cent. The trend for this quarter exactly replicates the previous quarter trend.