New joiners who submitted fake experience letters - how to tighten the selection process?

Hi,

We have recently come across a couple of new joiners who submitted fake experience letters. The letters were issued by consulting firms that exist only to sell experience letters at a cost. After joining, we found that the individuals were not up to par technically, whereas during the selection process, they had given a very good interview over Skype (there was no face-to-face round). Hence, we initiated a verification of their professional experience and discovered that they had exaggerated their experience and the issuing authorities were not genuine.

I seek advice from all of you regarding how to tighten the selection process. Just for information, most of the time we have to conduct Skype interviews and make decisions about selection. Please also share some pre-employment verification steps that may be practiced by your organization (reference checks, etc.).

- Gia

Post-interview and before offering the candidate (as you do not conduct face-to-face rounds), perform a background check to eliminate such cases. This does not have to be done formally. Avoid involving any agency or contacting the candidate's company for verification. You may need to utilize headhunting skills to address such issues.

Hi Mayur,

Thank you for your inputs. In our company, Talent Acquisition is a separate team. Since ours is a mid-sized IT startup, finding extremely good candidates is a challenge. Sometimes, we have to skip certain steps to expedite the joining process. In such situations, how can we ensure that we don't onboard fake candidates? This is a significant area of concern for us. Recently, we had to terminate an individual who seemed technically proficient during the two rounds of Skype interviews and was subsequently hired. However, after joining, we discovered that his communication skills were below average. Upon further technical evaluation, his score was only 2 out of 10.

Could you please share a sample recruitment policy that is typically applied in mid-sized IT companies?

Best regards,
Gia

Hi,

Well, in that case, post Skype interview, you must ask the candidate for an F2F round at your premises. Also, conduct a test for evaluation of technical knowledge before offering the candidate. Ask all the candidates to bring their latest salary slips and, importantly, bank account statements where the salary deposited transaction is reflecting. If the candidate is from a good organization, the salary is definitely deposited in the bank account only. This can be a way to check if the candidature is faked or not.

NASSCOM has started maintaining an employee database to weed out fake CVs. If the number of recruits is large, it is better to go to a third-party agency with a clause of non-payment of fees if fake candidates are approved by them. Random checks of their vetted profiles should be conducted to keep them on their toes. Everything can't be done by HR alone. You can also instruct them to match salary slips with bank account transactions as they have good contacts in the bank.

Dear All,

Recruitment is a very important function that requires not only extreme care and caution in appointing the best possible candidate but also in keeping the cost of the process low.

Now here is a word of caution: there are some over-smart people who exist all around. They apply in their name and send some other person to face the interview.

When the face-to-face interview or selection is not conducted, and the candidates are chosen based on telephonic/video/Skype interviews, there is a greater possibility that the actual candidate may not be answering the interview, and a proxy may be present. There have been instances where a fake person attended the face-to-face interview, and another person had joined.

Hence, all recruitment team members need to be very careful at all stages of the selection process.

You make a valid point. If you feel that a new joiner is not meeting expectations, you have every right to dismiss them, especially if their background verification has failed. However, if they perform well, you can overlook any fake experience they may have. It's worth noting that around 65% of the IT market is affected by individuals with fake experience.

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Please let me know if you need further assistance or have any other questions.

Before sending the offer letter, ensure you have obtained all the necessary documents from the candidate. Verify the documents either personally or through an external agency.

Include the following statement in your offer letter: "If any declaration provided by you to the company is found to be false, or if you have willfully withheld any material information, you may be subject to immediate termination without prior notice."

After incorporating the above statement, you may proceed with the remaining steps.

Regards,
Thiru

Dear Gia,

We seek two references, not friends or relatives, when the candidate appears for a personal interview. We then ask the candidate if we can speak to the references directly and proceed with contacting them. Additionally, we encourage the candidate to provide a reference from one of their recent past employments. We structure the questions for this reference as if they were associated with the candidate, as claimed by the candidate. Confronting the person referred by the candidate on facts mentioned in the candidate's resume, especially when they are unprepared, often reveals valuable insights. We also inquire whether the reference would be willing to provide a written reference for the candidate, preferably in hard copy or at least via email. While many oblige, in some cases, the reference provided by the candidate speaks openly once assured of strict confidentiality, leading us to disqualify the candidate in such instances.

In one particular case, a candidate cleverly provided the name of their brother-in-law as a reference, despite our policy against using relatives as references. During the face-to-face interview process, we collect the names and job positions of the candidate's close circle of relatives. While speaking to the reference, unaware that he was the brother-in-law, he provided an excellent reference. However, upon reviewing the data, we noted the match between the names of the relatives and the reference. Confronting the candidate revealed that he had indeed given the name of his brother-in-law, leading to his disqualification from the hiring process.

Our pre-employment process is not standardized but rather handled on a case-by-case basis.

M.V. Kannan

Hi Gia,

I work with an organization of 70 staff. My thoughts:

1. Make sure you have the right job description and skill requirements before you scout for candidates. The HR team may need to push the Tech Lead/PM to get what they want. Discuss with them the kind of projects the new recruits will be on.

2. Once the resume screening is through, talk to the candidates for around 10 minutes over the phone to ascertain the genuineness of the profile.

3. Ensure that the technical interview is done by a person who is competent. If you have the wrong person doing the technical interview, the entire exercise will turn futile.

4. Skype is good for an initial round of a technical interview. Never make an offer without a final round of a face-to-face interview - both technical & HR. You may have to schedule it for a weekend at times and reimburse the travel expenses, but it is definitely worth it. It is always better to have more than one person doing the technical interview, and the junior interviewer should be one who is not averse to questioning the observations of the senior. If all the interviewers recommend, move ahead.

5. During the HR round, verify all document copies against originals. Whether background verification is outsourced or not, the internal HR team has to play its part well in authenticating the claims of the candidates.

6. Do not compromise on the quality of the candidates for the sake of meeting deadlines. 'No recruitment' is better than 'bad recruitment.'

7. The HR Manager should own the responsibility for the performance of the candidates recruited.

Thanks,

Robin Thomas
HR Manager
Cabot Technology Solutions

Hello Gia,

Further to what other members suggested, please confirm the reason(s) why you DON'T have a face-to-face (F2F) in your selection process. Obviously, there must be reason(s).

Asking for TWO references is, in the given situation and with the given limitations, the best option for you—ensuring the candidates provide valid references—not of relatives or friends who don't have anything to do with their professional track record. Asking for ONE reference of a past or present boss and a SECOND reference of a past colleague would enable you to make calculated judgments.

When asking for references, please ensure they DON'T provide the references of someone whom they know very well at a personal level—quite often, the judgment is clouded by the personal rapport, and you end up receiving highly inflated/exaggerated opinions from that reference.

You mentioned '...had to fire a guy who appeared technically good over a Skype interview (2 rounds) and hence was hired but after he joined, we figured out his communication skills...'. There does seem to be a case to IMPROVE the Skype interview skills of your interview panel. Communication skills testing/evaluation is one of the easiest to conduct/handle over Skype—if this aspect wasn't noticed, then there's cause for concern from the HR angle.

I am not sure if there's any specific instruction set for your candidates taking the Skype interviews—we insist that the candidate should adjust the webcam so that half of his/her body is visible AND with the palms/hands on the table—not just the face or shoulder portion. That will enable the interviewer to see the body language—something that's done during an F2F.

At the end of the day, let's face it—no matter how much the processes are improved, there will always be individuals who figure out new ways to hoodwink the existing system(s)—the key is to keep refining the processes on a proactive basis.

All the best.

Regards,

TS

TS:
Basically, our candidates are mostly from outside Pune, so not many are open to coming all the way for a face-to-face (F2F) interview. Ours is a startup company, so attracting talent is a major challenge. Perhaps our Talent Acquisition team could expedite the process and onboard people within a certain turnaround time, skipping the F2F.
Nevertheless, with the recent fraud cases that have surfaced, we do want to tighten the selection process.
- Gia

Hello Gia,

Your reason for not having face-to-face meetings in the process doesn't sound realistic. We place people from all over the country and abroad too, to different locations.

One reason could be that whoever is speaking to the candidates initially to gauge their interest in the openings isn't getting them excited about the company. When candidates become interested, they usually don't hesitate to come for the face-to-face meetings.

Another reason could be that your company doesn't reimburse travel expenses for out-of-town candidates when they are called for a face-to-face meeting in Pune. I'm not sure if this applies in your case, as many startups have this constraint.

All the best.

Regards,
TS

Hi,

If you have already gone through the background verification and verified the authenticity of the documents submitted by them, and found forgery or anything that is not genuine, you must not hire the employees. This will also serve as a lesson to the employee who obtained these fake documents, and you should also file a complaint with the nearest Police Station, which is a moral and social duty.

Can you please explain how you determined that the authentication was not genuine and that candidates are being provided with fake experience certificates by certain agencies or consulting firms?

Hi, yes, I agree that we currently do not have a clear process to reimburse the travel expenses for out-station candidates. As part of our process improvement, we are taking the following steps:

- Include one round of face-to-face interviews (the technical panel will travel to the cities where interviews are conducted).
- Collect references at the offer stage and complete the reference checks before the candidate comes on board.
- Initiate verification of employment once he joins and complete the same within 15 days (we cannot initiate it before the joining because candidates can provide relieving/experience letters at the time of joining).

Regarding the question by Anil Arora, we conducted a check through an agency who also made a personal visit.

Thanks to all for the valuable inputs shared.

Gia

I agree with Mr. Mayur Shinde. We, at our organization, have come across many instances of this nature. Face-to-face meetings should be scheduled mandatorily to utilize headhunting skills efficiently and to establish a network of teams to manage background checks.

Regards,
Mridusmita

Dear Gia,

I can give you some suggestions in this case. I myself am also dealing with the onboarding process in a growing IT company. Here are the steps you need to take care of:

1) Ask the candidates to submit their education document proofs, employment proofs, address proof, PAN card, and Passport before joining.

2) Send these documents to the BG verification vendor to verify them as a pre-joining activity.

3) Ask the BG team to share the BG status before the candidate reports for joining.

4) Once the candidate reports, you need to check the following, which will help you to some extent to determine whether he is fake or not:

4a) Check all his education documents.

4b) Employment documents - For the last employer, check his recent payslips, Form 16, bank statements (where you can find out the salary credits), Service/Relieving Letter.

4c) Check start dates and end dates between the Service letters of his/her different employments. (There may be some chances of overlapping also)

4d) Accept Service/Relieving letters printed only on the respective company letterheads.

4e) Some candidates used to say they have only mail confirmations regarding their resignation acceptance. In such cases, accept the mails strictly sent from official mail IDs, not from public domains (Google, Yahoo, Rediff, etc).

4f) Some payslips will have Salary account numbers: check the same with bank statements.

4g) Check PAN number with his/her Form 16/ IT returns.