Employee background check discrepancy levels rise 48%: Report

Candidates are increasingly misrepresenting information in their applications to prospective employers and there has been a 48 per cent rise in employee background check discrepancy levels, says a survey.
According to AuthBridge's Annual Trends Report on Background Screening in India, background check discrepancy levels have jumped to 15.21 per cent in 2016-17, from 10.29 per cent in 2015-16, an increase of 48 per cent.
In other words, nearly one out of six cases (candidates) of background checked by AuthBridge was found to have an element of mismatch between information supplied by the candidate and actual, verified information.
"Increased competition and easy access to job related information, along with a dynamic job market, has led to increased faking of information by candidates," Ajay Trehan, founder and CEO, AuthBridge, said, adding that "organisations are responding to these challenges by developing structured background verification programmes to ensure they only hire trusted candidates with the right fit".

As job candidates are increasingly more likely to misrepresent information to prospective employers, companies need to adopt comprehensive background screening programmes to keep up the quality levels of their hiring.
The report, which looked at discrepancies with respect to four major checks, namely employment, education, reference and address, said employment verification witnessed the maximum discrepancy.
In terms of sector, the financial services industry had the maximum discrepant cases with a rate of 24.99 per cent, followed by the telecom, ISP and telecom infrastructure industry.
The discrepancy trend across genders has constantly reflected higher discrepancy rates for male candidates compared to females. In 2017, 15.71 per cent males misrepresented information as against 13.09 per cent females, the report said.