We talk so much about background verification and the need of it. But have you ever wondered if background verification is a guarantee for ‘no frauds’?
Not really, isn’t it! Even if an employee has a clear background verification, he might do some sort of fraud – big or small.
If it is so, can’t we just ignore few muddled up resumes? Say a candidate had a rigorous technical interview and he was great with his concepts and was the best fit for the post. His background verification has a few misrepresentations – mismatch for eight months of work experience or maybe a fake mark sheet of 12th standard to match the basic requirement for that post.
We all know he is a good catch, now just a 12th standard mark sheet or few months of work experience has been faked. Can it really harm us? After all, the candidate has got a sound knowledge in his area of expertise. He is a good catch.
Can’t we just ignore the background verification results and go ahead and hire the employee?
The answer is not too difficult.
You have to hire a baby-sitter and an elderly care-giver. You have small children and old parents to be taken care of.
Hiring a baby-sitter:
One candidate for the post of baby-sitter is great with your kids. Your kids instantly love her (we do find such people sometimes!) But when you do background verification for her, it fails.
She has not been working anywhere as nanny. This is her first job as nanny. Although she is just great with kids, your requirement was a more experienced nanny.
One thing is, she doesn’t match your requirement;
Second and most important thing is: she lied to get the job; she may lie again if kids are hurt or may jumble up food-intake information as per her convenience and may not provide proper care to the kids.
Hiring elderly-caretaker:
You want a nurse who could give proper medicines to your parents and take care of them like the way they will get in any hospital.
You have many candidates; one seems to be best fit. She has great experience and her fees look good too. You go ahead and do background verification.
Sadly, her background verification fails. She is not a registered nurse. Although, she has a lot of work experience as nurse and has taken care of many elderly people at home.
Will you leave your parents with an unqualified person, who has some assorted knowledge of nursing; who has no official training as a nurse? She may be aware of the medicines given to the people she nursed, but in your case, will she be able to handle any emergency situation?
Now, getting back to our organisation problem:
Children and Elderly-Parent:- Organization
Nanny And Nurse:- Candidates with fake resumes
Assuming we ignore the background verification result, thinking that background verification result doesn’t guarantee anything; will you be able to leave your children and parents to them?
Talking about me, I won’t and I know when we have to spend money on the nanny and nurse, we better have a truthful qualified person!
When we hire a candidate, apart from the time we invest and the cost of recruitment, another major cost is involved after the candidate joins is – cost of training the employee.
Do you really want to go ahead with the candidate whose background verification has failed? Of course there is, as yet, no guarantee that background verified employees won’t do any frauds, but that doesn’t mean we take background verification result lightly. It’s always better to be safe than sorry; isn’t it!
