Rahul Sinha’s ‘hard work’ finally paid off in 2005. A native of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, Sinha graduated from Delhi University in 2001, went to Pune in 2002 for an MBA from a top private institute and after struggling for a year, landed a job in the human resources (HR) department of an IT consultancy company in Gurgaon, on the outskirts of Delhi.After a decade of smooth sailing, Sinha was fired in March 2015. Not because of poor performance or a slowdown in the economy, but because his ‘hard work’ was recognised by a company to which he had applied for the post of head of HR. Sinha, it was discovered, never had an MBA degree!Sinha isn’t the only one sitting pretty in plum jobs with the aid of fake qualifications and sham CVs. “Delhi may have had one Tomar — a reference to the former Delhi law minister Jitender Singh Tomar who was recently arrested in a fake degree case — but India Inc has millions of Tomars,” says PK Sharma, head of the resource management group of Tech Mahindra, India’s fifth-largest IT services company.According to a recent study, 23 per cent of background checks on potential employees conducted in India from January 2014 to April 2015 contained discrepancies.Almost three out of 10 screenings conducted contained a lie or a discrepancy, according to HireRight, an employment background screening firm that came out with a report based on some 2,18,000 checks done in India between January 2014 to April 2015. While 52 per cent of discrepancies were related to educational information, 11% pertained to employment inaccuracies.India ranks 4th in the Asia Pacific in terms of the level of discrepancies found. At 23 per cent, the country is ahead of Singapore, Australia and China but trails the Philippines, Malaysia and Japan The percentage of discrepancies found in the screenings has increased year-on-year, doubling from 13 per cent in 2013 to 26% in 2014.India Inc, it seems, is sitting on a fake CV time bomb that’s set to explode.In an increasingly competitive job market, more candidates tend to embellish or fabricate qualifications or experiences on their resume in the hope of securing a highly contested position, says Edward Hickey, managing director , APAC of HireRight.“In a country as vast as India, it’s all too easy to fabricate industry qualifications and memberships, as access to resources is increasingly complex,” says Hickey. Without a system in place, verifying any piece of information can take approximately two to three months.This may put off many HR practitioners from conducting background checks. With attrition rates in India in the faster-growing sectors like banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) and IT services, HR managers are also under pressure to fill positions as quickly as possible, explains Hickey.It’s the pressure of filling the vacant posts by throwing caution to the wind that has led to spread of fake CVs across sectors. With 15.5%, healthcare and pharmacy topped the charts to report maximum discrepancies in CVs in 2014, according a study by First Advantage, a global provider of screening analytics and identity solutions. BFSI comes in next at 14.5%, followed by manufacturing, ITeS/BPO and IT, in that order.Mankind Pharma, a maker of over-the-counter medicines, antibiotics and antifungals, amongst other categories, says that every fourth resume it gets is fabricated. “India Inc has become the victim of a huge dump of bogus resumes,” says Pradip Sachdeva, HR head, Mankind Pharma, which has a head count of more than 12,000.The financial costs of fake CVs or large discrepancies can be staggering. They waste time and efforts of the recruiter, impact the turnaround time to fill a vacancy and result in low morale among the hiring team, adds Sachdeva.Mankind, he points out, has a stringent background screening system to weed out the black sheep. Apart from using behavioural interviewing techniques to understand how the candidate can work in any given situation, the company focuses on multiple layers of shortlisting and filters.“Too many skill sets and various types of roles and responsibilities mentioned in the resume is an alarm to deep-dive into the resume and validate the facts,” says Sachdeva, who has made it a norm to collect information from social networking sites before scheduling an interview.Insurance is another sector grappling with the menace of fakes. PNB MetLife, a private life insurance company, rejected over 14% of applicants with suspect degrees in 2014.Fake CVs and degrees are not just a problem for the company but an issue for the entire services sector, says Ashish K Srivastava , director (HR) of PNB MetLife, which has over 10,000 people on its rolls.To counter the menace, PNB Metlife has put in place a robust process to screen dubious CVs, and has an external agency to do background verifications. The insurance firm has further strengthened its screening processes and employees need to submit their documents during the interview rounds itself, which are vetted by the hiring manager. The background verification process also begins simultaneously, explains Srivastava.Apparel-to-shoes brand Woodland is another company to feel the pinch of fake resumes. The problem has reached such proportions that as many as a third of all candidates are seen to be misrepresenting facts in their CVs, and some give fake academic certificates, says Harkirat Singh, managing director of Woodland, which has some 10,000 people on its rolls. “As India Inc continues its hiring spree, it has to cope with the growing menace of Smart Alecks fudging their CVs,” says Singh.The managing director of Woodland attributes the rise in fake CVS to desperation among jobseekers.In a brutal employment market, some may be tempted to falsify their work or education history in order to make themselves more attractive to potential employers, he says.One of the most common lies that Singh has seen is inflated job titles in CVs, and by now his HR honchos are quick to catch on. Rather than going by the skillsets mentioned by the candidates, they resort to a practical test. So instead of asking a candidate if he/she can use a specific software, Woodland asks them to perform a couple of difficult tasks using that software.“The most important test to detect resume fraud is to test the candidate’s technical skills,” avers Singh.In some cases, the company uses the services of background screening agencies to check a potential employee’s past. This helps it in verifying a candidate’s credentials and keeping a check on the growing incidences of fraud, negligence and data theft, says Singh. “You simply can’t afford a bad hire. The average cost of a bad hiring decision can equal 30% of the individual’s first year potential earnings.”According to a study by Society for Human Resource Management, the cost of a bad hire to an organisation is five times the bad hire’s annual salary. There can also be dire consequences such as reputational damage and financial concerns.When a candidate is hired, the employer invests time and money on interviews, induction and training, says Navin Chugh , managing director of First Advantage India.When they discover discrepancies related to the credentials of an employee, they suffer a major loss. “Wrong hires could be a potential risk to the company as they get access to confidential data that they can misuse,” says Chugh.The blame for such financial hits lies squarely with the companies, feels Chugh.Given the huge supply-demand situation in India Inc, many organisations have become more tolerant of ‘lighter’ discrepancies such as employment history, employment gaps, title, skills, actual work experiences.While resume verification is not widely done, it has been observed the resume discrepancy is as high as 60-65 per cent across the board, he says.The problem for India Inc has been compounded by the presence of shady companies mentioned in CVs. Chugh remembers one such incident when a company mentioned in a candidate’s CV was untraceable, First Advantage tried to connect with the company, which in turn asked them to visit their office and verify. When officials of the screening company landed at the office the following day, they found the company’s setup suspicious; and it could not provide convincing responses to the queries posed during verification. “On further investigation, we found that the company was providing fake certificates to potential candidates for a huge sum of money,” says Chugh.HR managers are quick to point that a spurt in fakes is also due to the fact that companies have become alert and have put foolproof screening systems in place.Take, for instance, Tech Mahindra, which conducts verification of over 2,500 cases every month and has seen only 0.4 per cent cases with fake documents. The credit for such a small number goes to the company’s policy of sensitising candidates about the kind of strict background screening that they would be subject to.“This acts as a deterrent and results in low levels of fudging,” says Sharma. The educational information provided by a candidate is cross-verified with the company’s database of fake educational institutions. And if there’s an element of suspicion, candidates are asked to furnish additional documents such as semester mark-sheets, college identity proof and migration certificate for further verification.As far as employment history is concerned, the company uses its database of fake or suspicious companies along with filing of income tax returns, form 16, salary account and provident fund details.But not all loopholes can be plugged. “When companies indulge in both genuine business as well as practice of issuing fake certificates for extra income, it becomes difficult to catch them,” contends Sharma.Dell India, on its part, leaves no stone unturned to catch any potential offenders.The PC maker not only verifies education, employment and criminal history across all hiring levels but also does global compliance checks. It is essential for candidates to clear the background verification for recruitment, says Savneet Shergill , head of talent acquisition at Dell India, which has a head count of roughly 27,000. “With the advent of background checks in most companies, forging documents like relieving letters or offer letters has drastically reduced over the years,” says Shergill.Tata Chemicals too feels that alertness of companies is pushing candidates to come clean on their employment or educational details. A determined fraudster will employ innovative methods which, therefore, calls for more vigil on the part of the recruiter, says R Nanda, head of human resources at Tata Chemicals, which has a headcount of over 3,900. Nanda vividly remembers one such case where the vigilance of the company saved the day. The candidate had cleared the selection process and everything seemed okay. However, an alert HR team member spotted that the PF transfer papers that the candidate had provided almost six months after joining the company had past employer details which were different from what was mentioned in the resume.Further investigation revealed that the candidate had not mentioned his immediate past employer details as there was some integrity issue, recalls Nanda. The candidate had tried to mask the same in his resume by mentioning that he was not employed during that time as he had gone to his native town to take care of his family business.But on the whole, the trend of cheating is declining, reckons Nanda. “Candidates are becoming increasingly aware that companies have put in robust verification processes.So they do not want to take a chance with their careers,” he says.Perceptions, though, linger even if the scenario is improving. India’s image already suffers from corruption, forgery, bribery and other unethical practices, says Chugh of First Advantage. Add to it the fact that a little ‘fudging’ or exaggeration of facts is not considered an offense or a criminal act or perjury in the country. There is a need to change the mindset of the people and take these matters seriously, he says.“Raw ambition, greed and a desire to get ahead at any cost have led to an increase in unscrupulous practices starting from falsification of data to providing fake and fraudulent documents,” says Chugh. Clearly, along with Make in India, the focus also needs to be on eradicating Fake in India.