Industry struggles to tackle fake the certificate challenge

The Central Crime Branch last week busted a gang that produced fake certificates of schools, colleges and technical educational institutions in Tamil Nadu. Fake certificates and misrepresentation of facts are affecting industry, especially the IT sector, which recruits people in large numbers.

Media reports quoting investigators said the gang had original certificates of various institutions to create fake certificate/marksheet templates on a computer. They had prepared over 1,000 fake certificates since 2001.

The three-member gang prepared class 10 and class 12 fake mark sheets, polytechnic diplomas and arts and sciences degrees and engineering degree certificates. Nearly 300 rubber stamps were seized from them, the reports said.

“One out of every five resume floating around could be fake or dysfunctional. Fake certificate is an issue that we do struggle with on a daily basis,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, Co-Founder and Senior Vice-President, TeamLease, a recruitment company.

Over the last five years, there were over 200 cases of misrepresentation of facts of which about 60 per cent was serious in nature. It led to immediate termination of the candidates, and they have been blacklisted to ensure that they are not offered any employment through the company anytime in the near future, she said.

It is impossible to check this problem as India does not have a national background and credit checking platform for every person working in the organised sector to have a mechanism to weed out fake resume at an early stage of engaging with them.

Nasscom’s initiative to check the fake certificate for the IT Industry is a commendable initiative. With over 16 lakhs registered profiles, 148 registered companies and 19 background checkers, it is a good beginning. However, this needs to be done across industries, she said.

Moorthy K Uppaluri, CEO, Randstad India, a recruitment company, said fake certificate and misrepresentation of data is widespread with 10 to 20 per cent of resumes the company encountered have misrepresented details. This trend is widespread across sectors with IT and ITeS the worst-hit. And within IT, it is often seen among the contractual staff.

Typically, details on educational aggregates, qualifications, tenure at a company and designation are the most commonly misrepresented data fields. Also, the misrepresentation in terms of professional experience is quite common. For example, in the IT sector, candidates claim to have worked on a particular project when he actually has not.

Depending on whether the hiring is permanent or contractual, there are different procedures for background verification. For a permanent hire, the client undertakes the responsibility of background checks whereas, in case of temporary staff, firms like Randstad conduct stringent verification through associates, he said.

Infosys has a strong process to check on the authenticity of people hired and the company use this consistently to ensure that genuine candidates are recruited, said a company spokesperson.

According to Stephen Sudhakar, Vice President, HR, Hyundai Motor India, to prevent the fake certificate issue, the company engages in peer group and contemporary group verification (checking with students who have passed out from same institution, same period who are currently employed in the organisation).

Abundant caution is exercised while evaluating students from institutes that are prone to this fake certificate menace. Diligent background check of candidates using social media and professional networks, candidates provided references, verification from previous companies, he said.

Source: thehindubusinessline