TCS pink slip to techies with fudged CVs (TATA)

[OhioChick]

Source: Rediff India

July 14, 2008 10:30 IST

The IT-BPO industry is becoming increasingly alert on fake biodatas. India's largest IT serivces provider, Tata Consultancy Service, has recently asked close to 20 employees at its Kolkata centre to leave after the company, during the background verification, found that these employees have used fudged resumes to get jobs.

"As a customer-focused organiaation, security is of paramount importance to us. We have a stringent background verification process in TCS. We take this process very seriously and have issued action against the errant employees. We have launched an internal investigation to identify the entire ecosystem and all involved in the racket," said a senior company official.

In the recent past all the major IT firms, including Infosys , Satyam and Wipro , and many mid-sized firms have taken a hard stand on fake or fudged resumes. However, the incidents continue. First Advantage, a leading background screening firm, in its recent report states that 30 per cent of all the resumes they have screened have discrepancies.

In 2006-07, the company screened over 2 million applicants across industries.

Ashish Dehade, managing director (West Asia), First Advantage says, "The percentage has been increasing. In 2006 it was 16-17 per cent, for 2007 it was 30 per cent and while we are just six months into 2008 the percentage is around 30 per cent."

TCS is not the only firm doing this. Earlier Infosys had asked close to 100 employees to leave in FY07 due to discrepancies found in the resumes.

Same goes for Satyam and Wipro Technologies. Some time back it was reported that Wipro would be sharing with other IT firms the database of job applicants who have faked information in their CVs.



Read more: http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jul/14it.htm

---

Nice....Wonder how long this has been going on?

Yet..."The percentage has been increasing."

[ChromeFoundry]

1. No surprise

Many H-1B's pad their resumes here. I see it all the time.

[EnviroBat]

2. Ahh, yes... How many times have I interviewed H1B's with

"fudged" resume's? I've lost count now... How conveniently it becomes a "language" barrier issue, when the questions get relevant. You'd think they never seen a computer before, but the resume makes them out to be frikking computer engineers.

[notadmblnd]

3. i always knew that more than English was a barrier when dealing with their service centers

[sui generis]

4. let's talk about First Advantage for a minute

Who stands to benefit from reporting discrepancies?

First Advantage requires applicants to put their dates of employment to the day, checks for exact matches on title, on reported income, etc. They also erroneously flag resumes with multiple engagements (typical of independent consulting), and pass back "can not confirm" information for companies that are no longer in business or who have changed their legal name. They "rate" the number of "discrepancies" and act as a "gatekeeper" for the companies that OUTSOURCE their recruiting front-end. They're horrible.

Granted, some people "fudge" their resumes, i.e., educational level, etc., but even banks carry "operating title" and "salary title", meaning, all Veeps are "Senior Managers" in HR, and Veeps by title. If somebody calls to confirm a title of Senior Vice President, it could easily happen that an HR resource would only validate a title of Senior Manager. FirstAdvantage doesn't dig any deeper or qualify the "fudge" with an opinion, and the resume doesn't even get TO the employer if they don't have exact matches all the way down.

Having worked with resources from TCS, Wipro AND Infosys, I can readily say that "fudging" or not, most everyone I've had the experience of working with has been very capable and experienced. I certainly hope that people relying on HUMAN intelligence and not some fucked up piece of software.

Finally, little known fact, when you fill out an on-line application that is "powered by" FirstAdvantage, you implicitly agree to let them use your information for marketing purposes, and you've just given them an accurate record of your income, your address, your job title and industry, etc. That information goes to their "partner companies" direct marketing companies like PRS here in Dallas for CHAID (et al) analysis to determine your likelihood to buy certain products and services, and is then resold over and over to anyone who wants it.

See, gatekeeper. If you give error free information, you're added to a marketing list. If you screw something up, they'll never tell you. If you tell the absolute accurate truth on everything but your current address (like using "123 Unlisted Street" to avoid marketing) they'll shitcan your on-line application because of "indiscrepancies".

Fight back. Send a paper resume with cover letter directly to the company HR department and reference the position. If the internet is more convenient, remember that there is no such thing as a bargain.

[Runcible Spoon]

5. that's some evil shit and completely on par for these kinds of "security" companies.

Hell, on my CV I put the month and year of my employments since honestly I don't know whether or not if a check went back to my prior jobs they would count my period of employment as starting/ending by the actual days I physically went in and rendered services or as indicated by my pay stubs. Same thing for education: you want the day I went to graduation commencements for my multiple degrees or the day the physical pieces of paper were delivered to me? I don't fucking know so you get months/years. Anything more specific is an invitation to this kind of badgering on minute details.

I wonder how many times software like this has been used to get rid of employees deemed undesirable for any number of reasons: performance? sure, but what about: gender, ethnicity, age, hell maybe Employee X just agitated for unionization...hmmmm....

[ihavenobias]

6. Kick