In todays world of high growth, Companies live by the maxim, maximise competitive advantage through the people you employ. India, despite its reputation as a bottomless well of job opportunities, is having an increasingly difficult time finding qualified people to fuel its booming growth across sectors such as IT/ ITES, telecom, banking, insurance, retail and financial services.

Recruitment of workforce across all levels of an organisation emerges as one of the key business processes in every organisation across all industries. Competition for talent is fierce, and Companies are hiring at a pace faster than ever before in their quest to stay ahead in the race.

Where the right recruitment(s) can support the organisations ambitious growth plans, the wrong recruitment(s) could expose the company to losses in the form of misappropriation of its assets, impact on shareholder confidence and a tarnished brand image.

A couple of years back, the media reported that during an audit conducted at Wipro, a pattern in the resumes of some employees in the mainframes skills area, inducted in the company in the last six to eight months, was unmasked. The projects executed were similar in nature and content, so were the employers.

In another incident, IBM was hiring a SAP consultant and the person was interviewed over the phone. He seemed to know everything about SAP, but the one who ultimately showed up for the interview and landed with the job was not the person spoken to. This was discovered by accident. An internal team chanced upon the same telephone number being used for multiple interviews. Someone was orchestrating interviews.

The learning: faking CVs is not the only problem, and its a moving target. The knowledge of the fact that the candidate will be judged to a great extent by his resume acts as a powerful incentive to fabricate the resume. Most recruitment consultants also tutor candidates on writing resumes and facing interviews to impress the employers.

In todays world of job hopping, giving false information with respect to salaries, accomplishments and education qualification in the resume is a very common phenomenon. This has also seen to be extended to false mention of specific roles and duties, inflated job titles and inaccurate dates to cover up job-hopping or gaps in employment. For the candidate it may be a minor deviation from reality, but from a companys point of view it is an integrity issue for which there is...