IT sector noted highest discrepancy at 16.60% in employee background verification: Report
Eight out of 100 candidates misled or misinformed on job applications in 2020 with the IT sector witnessing the highest discrepancy in employee background verification at 16.60 per cent, according to identity management and business intelligence firm AuthBridge.
Despite a drop in the overall discrepancy in the last three years, AuthBridge said in its sixth annual trend report that the healthcare sector had the second-highest discrepancy at 12 per cent, followed by retail at 10.22 per cent and BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) and pharma with discrepancy of 9.76 per cent and 9.65 per cent, respectively.
The travel and hospitality sector with 9.58 per cent also featured in the list of sectors with the highest discrepancy ratios, the report said.
“Eight out of 100 candidates lie or misinform during job application,” the report said.
Candidates between the age of 35 to 39 years have the highest discrepancy rate at 9.09 per cent, indicating bigger incentives for candidates in this age-bracket to fudge their credentials for better job opportunities, it added.
“Candidates within the age of 35-39 had the highest share of discrepancy and the same age bracket has been scoring high since the last three years…Therefore, it is important to be careful when hiring in that age group,” AuthBridge Founder and CEO Ajay Trehan told in an emailed response.
On the findings of the report, he said, “The overall top-level trend shows discrepancy has seen a drop in the last three years – and it’s understandable. As awareness and adoption for background screening protocols tightens up in corporate India, it filters dubious candidates who either won’t begin the process or will have a strong reason to be truthful.”
He, however, said, “Interestingly, in gig economy space there’s hardly a drop and discrepancy has remained between 4 per cent to 5 per cent.”
AuthBridge said the top for discrepant checks are address, employment, identity and education verifications.
“Employment verification still tops as the biggest culprit – the check with most discrepancies across industries. This is a must for all white collar hiring and companies must screen at least past three employments,” Trehan said.
For the on-demand sector, police verification has seen a whopping jump from 3 per cent to 19 per cent between 2018 to 2020, he added.
The report had found that two out of 100 applicants in the on-demand and blue-collar space had a criminal or civil litigation record against them.
Trehan said address check discrepancy has fallen to 6 per cent in 2020 from 10 per cent in 2018, mostly due to better mechanism of address verification and the eastern part of India still sees the highest discrepancy due to tough terrain and dropouts.
In terms of region, the report said, “For the third time in a row, North India showed the highest discrepancy in education checks at 1.44 per cent in 2020 and it also had the highest employment discrepancy at 5.71 per cent.”
East India had the highest discrepancy in address checks at 5.45 per cent, it added.
AuthBridge said its Annual Trend Report 2020 “draws data-driven insights from millions of background checks the company conducted and discrepancy trends that were observed in the information shared by candidates during their verification process in the last three years.”
The report looked at discrepancy patterns under a variety of checks across 15 industries. These checks included identity verification, address verification, education check, reference check, criminal history verification.
