How Digital Background Checks Can Help You Spot Fabricated Job Experiences

Employees are invaluable assets for every organization. It’s hard to accept that they also contribute largely towards occupational fraud. In fact, businesses tend to lose 5% of their annual revenue due to occupational fraud (according to a report by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners).

It’s also true that today’s employers face increasing challenges when it comes to hiring the right candidates. One of their most concerning issues is fabricated job experiences, which eventually lead to bad hires, wasteful resources, and even serious legal risks. In order to combat this growing concern, companies are increasingly turning to digital background checks as a reliable tool for their hiring process. A BGV vendor like Digiverifier can help businesses quickly and efficiently verify the claims made by shortlisted candidates.

The Rising Problem of Fabricated Job Experiences

Many job seekers submit inaccurate or completely false details on their resumes. This encompasses inflating their past job positions, misrepresenting how long they worked at previous jobs, and even creating fake skills and experiences. In an environment where competition is intense, numerous applicants feel compelled to portray themselves as more skilled than they truly are, which can have serious negative effects for employers.

Hiring someone with fabricated job experiences means onboarding an individual who lacks the skills or experience necessary for the job. Slowly, it will result in poor performance, productivity loss, and even damage to the company’s reputation. The cost of bad hires is significant, both in terms of time and money. However, the emergence of digital employee background verification solutions has made it easier for employers to identify these discrepancies before they turn into costly mistakes.

Rates of Lying on a Resume

The prevalence of dishonesty in the job application is quite significant, with employees confessing to falsehoods frequently throughout their resumes, cover letters, and interviews. Research conducted by ResumeLab in August 2023, involving 1,914 respondents, uncovered the shocking scale of these deceptions. The study discovered that the most prevalent falsehoods included exaggerating job positions and duties, inflating the number of employees supervised, and misrepresenting the duration of employment. These false claims can be detrimental to both job seekers and employers, highlighting the critical need for thorough background checks.

Here are some key statistics from the survey:

• 70% of employees have been caught lying on their job applications, with 37% saying they do it frequently.

• 76% of employees have stretched the truth in their cover letters, with 50% doing it quite often.

• 80% of employees have fibbed during job interviews.

• Job seekers lie most often during interviews.

• Employees with advanced degrees like Master’s or PhDs are more likely to exaggerate on their resumes (85% in total) compared to those with just a bachelor’s or associate’s degree (63% in total) or no college education at all (71% in total).

The Power of Digital Background Checks

Digital employee background verification provides numerous benefits that simplify the process for employers to identify candidates with fabricated job experiences. Through the use of sophisticated technologies and digital ecosystems like Digilocker, EPFO, and ITR, employers can easily obtain accurate and up-to-date information to confirm a candidate’s employment background, academic qualifications, and criminal history. Here’s how these online resources can assist:

Faster, More Accurate Results

Digital background verification checks can significantly reduce the time required for varying a candidate’s information. For example, Digiverifier performs real-time verifications using trusted data sources. Thus, employers can get accurate results or information in a fraction of the time compared to traditional manual methods.

Eliminating Fake Employers and Titles

Listing fake companies or job titles is one of the most common ways candidates fabricate their resumes. Advanced digital background verification platforms like Digiverfier can instantly cross-check employment records with government databases such as EPFO and Digilocker, and employers will get verified information (employment history, salary claims, and job titles) of their shortlisted candidates.

Identifying Moonlighting

Another concerning issue in the modern workforce, especially in remote work cultures, is moonlighting. When employees perform additional jobs without informing their primary employer, it is called moonlighting. Long-term continuation of this practice can lead to conflicts of interest, security breaches, and ethical violations.

Digiverifier can help employers tackle moonlighting. Via a UAN check, it can find out multiple employment records of employees. In fact, Digiverifier identified a candidate who was moonlighting with 62 employers over a period of six years and saved the employer from making a bad hire.

Minimizing the Risk of Impersonation

In some cases, job seekers may try to impersonate others to land a job, using forged documents or fabricated job experiences. Advanced digital employee background verification solutions can rapidly detect inconsistencies in job histories or educational backgrounds. For example, Digiverifier’s reference verification services can reveal instances where a candidate has submitted fake documents by cross-checking them with actual employers or educational institutions. In a real-life scenario, an applicant was exposed for using someone else’s employment papers to get a position. Thanks to Digiverifier’s sophisticated technology, this situation was quickly recognized, preventing the company from making a poor hiring decision.

Conclusion

Digital background verification is an invaluable tool for employers who want to identify fabricated job experiences and prevent hiring dishonest candidates. With advanced platforms like Digiverfier, employers can ensure that they are hiring genuine, qualified candidates who can contribute positively to their organization. By partnering with Digiverifier, a trusted BGV vendor, companies can safeguard their recruitment process, avoid bad hires, and build a trustworthy workforce.