How to Detect Resume Fraud: Top 10 Tips for Employers

Most of us try to trick the hiring manager by putting in some wrong information thinking that they won’t come to know about it. Once we get through the interview, then we will see how we can manage that lie of ours. This is the thought process of many of us, but we sometimes forget that people sitting on the other side of the chair are much more experienced than us.

They are going through hundreds of resume for selecting the right candidate, so they are trained to detect the fraud and eliminate it right away. So, as a job seeker, we must not do anything that will hamper our reputation or chances of getting selected.

Red Flags to look for in Resumes:

As a recruiter if you are going through resumes, then there are some points that you must keep in your mind to detect the fraud. If someone is promising that they are too good, then you must take it as a warning and investigate more on that matter. Yes, someone might be an expert in certain fields, but that doesn’t mean he or she knows everything.

There are always some loopholes that the candidates try to hide and in a quest to do that, they take the help of wrong information. Self promotion is required, but to what extent that needs to be taken into account.

You must also be aware of the name droppers. If the candidate has such big hold, then why are you applying for this job? Why not talk to the higher authority directly and prepare a cabin for yourself right away? Why do you need to go through this long, strenuous job interview procedure.

Tips to Detect Resume Fraud:

There are several ways of detecting the resume fraud. Here we are mentioning some easy ways to do it at the first glance.

1. Boasting about oneself:

Looking for a hint to detect the fraud, then you must sniff for sentences like ‘I am the youngest person to achieve ….’ or something like ‘renowned world class manager’.

These are some of the words that must alert you about the fraud because even the world leaders doesn’t boast about themselves or use these kinds of words.

2. Dropping names:

It is one of the annoying habits of people who are insecure about their ownself. They think that if they keep on taking the names of big shots and refer them as friends and families, then people would be highly impressed with them, but that is not the case.

Instead, when someone is dropping names in the resume as well, then the red flag must hoist immediately. If you find candidates, including names of well known personalities in their biography, then you must verify it right away.

3. Answering vaguely to specified questions:

One common question that every recruiter asks the candidate is how long they have served the prior company. The candidates are also asked about their previous boss. These are some of the common questions that the candidates are asked to prepare when they are preparing for any interview.

If the candidates are not able to come up with a proper answer, then the warning bell must start ringing. If they are saying that to maintain the confidentiality, they are not answering the question, then they are hiding something from you. Any kind of suspicious behavior must be taken into consideration for further probe into the matter.

4. Go beyond the reference provided:

Rather than just calling up the references provided by the candidate, it is better to call up some other people as well from the organization.

The reference provided by the candidates are the ones that are verified by the candidates, but if you want to know exactly how the employee was, then you can call the former colleagues or manager or even the direct reports as well.

5. Google well:

Google has this wide window through which you can verify almost everything sitting at the comfort of your house. So, why not use it creatively and pull up the name of the candidate’s name to see how well organized he is. Just keep on digging deep unless until you find something accurate about the candidate.

6. Verify the missing threads in employment:

If you see that there is a gap of two months or one year in between a job or education, then grill him more on that matter. Ask him to explain clearly why the gap was there.

It might happen that he was sentenced to a year’s term in a jail and that is the reason of missing thread in the resume.

7. Wrong educational qualification:

The candidate might come up with some high profile college name, which he never ever attended. You will come to know about it when you see the scores because in order to get through the admission process of some good college you need to score well.

8. Experience:

The resume might say that he has worked in a company for 5 years and also served the company as its CEO too, but here you need to verify whether he was the CEO for 5 years or he was just promoted to that post.

Job experience is one thing that many candidates lie about, thinking that this information won’t be verified. They think that this falls in the category of white lie, which they can cover up later.

9. Online discrepancies:

Many candidates update different information in different portals. In one social networking site they would update 2 years of work experience and in the other only one and half year of experience is noted. This is easily one of the red flags to notify you that something is terribly wrong in this candidate.

10. Dates gone missing:

If you see that the date of joining and leaving a company is missing from the resume, then something is amiss in the resume. There is a loose end in there that you need to find and fix it.

There might be something that the candidate is trying to hide or avoid some unlikely questions from the interviewer.

To Wrap up:

Here are some tips that you can keep in mind while verifying the resume. But, the best thing to do while sifting through resume is to trust your intuitions as well as your experience.