“I completed computer engineering in 2003. I tried to get a job for a year. I
didn't manage even a single interview. Then I padded up my CV with some
experience I didn't have. I got a job as a software engineer. Today, I handle a
team of 15 people-all of them have lied on their CVs. My team won the “Best Team
In the Company” award, among 105 teams! I serve my company with loyalty and hard
work.
Is there anything wrong in having lied on my CV?
(Excerpted from a blog discussion on faking CVs)
That statement demonstrates a thinking process. Why only CVs? There is enough
embellished news floating around. There are fake drugs. There is fake currency.
There are fake bodies. Back in 1976 one of our classmates at IIT-Delhi faked his
resume to get admitted to a US university. He was later caught. Till then he
became a folk hero. I recall a discussion where a couple of us insisted that
what he had done was not proper. We were promptly told-in colorful language-that
we lacked brains and courage and therefore were pulling down an achiever!
Faking CVs is certainly not a legitimate work practice. But it is a rather
convoluted problem.
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Shyam Malhotra |
The scale of hiring in the IT/BPO industry makes it the most lucrative
target for fakers. When individual companies hire hundreds of people a day the
success probability of getting in on a fake CV is the highest. Reference
checks maybe performed but there intensity and depth is limited. It is also
possible that the industry is a willing target. Under the pressure of numbers
the recruiters may let in suspicious resumes. In fact employees claim that it
is good for the industry if they keep some “suspicious” folks around. They
“can be conveniently thrown out when projects dry up!” Far fetched? Yes. But
it is not a perception that needs to be encouraged.
Then there is the question of company values and integrity. Resume fakers
insist that the same companies think nothing of sprucing up their multi-year,
multi-million dollar proposals with half truths. So why does embellishment by an
individual become a punishable offense?
And finally the clincher-does it really matter what was said on the CV, when
the same guy is doing very well at work? The Indian value system and recruitment
processes put a premium on qualifications and experience. Globally, it is
abilities, competencies and demonstrated success that get higher weight. At the
entry level India has a developed system of tiers of colleges and levels of MBA
degrees. And a caste system operates in recruitments.
It makes sense to move toward a recruitment system that is based more on
abilities and demonstrated skills rather that resumes. If you write good code
you are hired to program. If you have good communication skills you can be a
call center agent. The tools to measure these need to be developed and used. A
CV is rather inadequate as a tool. So why not give low weightage to the CV in
the hiring system? The need to pack it with half truths will automatically go
down.
Otherwise figuring out which half is the truth will remain a problem.