How to Identify Fake Candidates via Phone Screening?

Tip 1: Name of the candidate

Most of the fake candidates will not mention their full name in their resume. Forget about the Last name, they will hide their complete first name itself.

For example: If you come across a resume with the candidate’s name being Kiran. Do not skip it. Ask the candidate about his full name. It would be something like Kiran Kumar or Kiran Chowdhary.

Fake candidates don’t flash their full name in the CV, since the full name could easily locate a candidate. They would have applied for a job somewhere and they would have got caught for faking the employment. To ensure they don’t get caught in those eyes again, they refuse to mention their full name. In many cases, they even change their mail id and phone number.

Tip 2: Ask the whereabouts of the companies worked

Though the candidates normally mention their Current & previous companies in the resume, please have a practice to ask them where they are currently working. At times, you might get interesting answers. Without memorising their resume properly, certain fakers used to tell their previous company as the current one.

Ask where their company is located. Once they say it, cross-check if the mentioned location is right in the company’s website.

Ask the candidate to spell their current company’s URL. Even here, you might get some interesting answers. Somebody working for an organisation genuinely will not forget the company’s URL right. But, most of the fake candidates do not even know their company’s URL.

Tip 3: Validate the Entry / Exit dates of the recent 2 employments

Beware if a candidate has worked in two companies as a Contractor under the payroll of the same Contracting company.

Case:

Software Engineer in TCS from Feb 2015 to till date

Software Engineer in CTS from Aug 2013 to Jan 2015

Pay roll company - xyz consultancy

In the above case, the candidate has worked in 2 companies under the payroll of the same Contracting company. If you crosscheck about their exit date from CTS and entry date in TCS, you will be surprised to see that the candidate would have joined the day next to his/her date of exit in TCS. The simple question is how will the contracting company be able to place a contractor in the next assignment, the very next date of exit from the deputed organisation.

Let’s take a practical example. Even full-time employees in a Big conglomerate like TCS, they take a buffer time of 1 or 2 weeks to allocate an employee in the next project. The employee once out of the project will be put in bench for a few days or even months in some cases, before allocating them in the next project.

And moreover, except for a few big contracting companies like Artech, Magna, Dynpro, none of the contracting companies have the enough budget or practice to hold the contractors by holding them in bench.

That’s a real good reason to doubt someone’s candidature.

Tip 4: Timesheet process followed in the Contractual employment

Timesheet process is the name of the attendance process followed in the Contractual employments. If someone doesn’t even know about the Timesheet process, then he/she is faking.

Well established corporates usually have an online tool to track the Timesheet of the Contractors.

From our above case, We can check with the candidate about the name of the software he/she follow in TCS, in which you enter your timesheet daily.

If you get “Ultimatix” as the answer, then that’s a genuine case. If you don’t get the relevant answers, then our subject is faking.

TCS uses Ultimatix for maintaining the Business Associate track records.

CTS uses a tool called VLC

And similarly many Corporates which have a huge amount of contractors onboard, they will have a software with them to track the contractors’ workflow.

Certain companies do not have any software for timesheet maintenance, but they will definitely have the Timesheet practice been followed Manually.

So, if a candidate says he/she doesn’t know what a Timesheet process is, then that’s a clear indicator that our subject is a Fake candidate.

Tip 5: Ask how they got placed in their first employment.

Predominantly we are talking about the ones who are faking with the experiences of 2 to 4 years. So, asking the aforementioned question is not an absurd question, coz they are still juniors in the career ladder.

If you come across people who work in some 'costly to learn' technologies as a contractor from the beginning of their career, ask how they got this job.

Normally, companies will not be keen to train the contractors in some of the niche technologies like Documentum, Filenet, Tibco, Visionplus, etc… If someone claims to have started their career as a contractor in Technologies similar to the above quoted ones, and the candidate continues to give irrelevant answers, then that’s another indicator that our guy is a Fake.

This tip is not applicable for the ones who are been Contracted by a Training cum Placement company. Coz, those Training cum Placement firms normally train the candidates in the above mentioned ‘Costly to learn’ technologies and place them in their client locations as Contractors.

Tip 6: Propose a F2F Interview

Normally, the fake candidates do not volunteer for a F2F interview, rather they would want a telephonic interview always.

The reason being, someone else will take up the interview on the candidate’s behalf. Inviting them for F2F will ruin their entire operating model. Even if they say yes for the F2F interview request, they never turn up.

In case of certain Mega walk-in interviews, instead of the fake candidates, the proxy ones will appear for the F2F interview directly. When asked to submit the photograph before the interview start, they submit the fake candidate’s photo without hesitation. Coz, they have a confidence that due to heavy crowd at the premises, the HR coordinators may not compare the submitted photo to that of the person who is actually attending the interview. The proxy ones will finish off the interview and the fake ones will join the organisation directly.

As a HR, one must be very careful in examining the photograph and the interviewee properly before even the interview starts.

Tip 7: Search the Company in Job Boards

If someone claims that he/she is working as a Permanent employee is a company which has got no name in the market.

Google the company’s name, you might finds complaints or any fake history registered by somebody in the past.

If not, go to Job boards like Naukri.com, feed the company’s name in the ‘Employers' tab and set the ‘Active In’ option as ‘All resumes’ and ‘Search’. Whether you search the ‘Recent 1 year’ or ‘All resumes’, the amount of resumes listed will be the same. Coz, Any fake company will not have a history of more than a year.

The fake contracting companies keep changing their company names regularly and you will not find the same fake contracting companies’ history for more than a year.

Tip 8: Do a mock call

Call the candidate as if you are a fresher. Do not use your English communication skills here. Coz, you are talking like a fresher who is going to fake his/her experience. And you have reached him to take his advice for faking your experience. Well! this has worked out for me a few times.

Tip 9: Offer a Fresher opportunity with an attractive CTC

This is like throwing a fishing needle with an attractive prey to the fish. After all the above examination, still if you are not convinced that the candidate is a fake. Use this at last.

Tell them that you have a job opportunity for Freshers for a full-time position and you can offer upto 5 Lacs. And also, probe them if they wanna try it.

Normally, the fakes we are targeting are of the salary range between 3 to 5 Lacs. So, the above offer should be appetising for them, coz that’s an opportunity to have a good career beginning and a chance for them to wipe out their fake history.

So, the fake ones desperate for a job offer would say a big ‘YES’ to this. That’s it. Our job is done.

Tip 10: Crosscheck the Education details

I’ve come across a case where the candidate was a B.Sc., graduate with 3 years of experience in ‘Oracle DBA’. I did all the examinations and had a doubt that he is fake. He revealed himself when I used the 'Tip 9’ of offering a fresher opportunity.

Actually he was a MCA fresher. By hiding his 3 years MCA course, he has brought in a 3 years of fake experience. How about that?

Final Tip: Drop the profile

If all the above mentioned metrics are showing positive results, why risk your time by processing such a candidate. It’s always better to drop such profiles and look for a better one.

If anyone has any other tip than the above listed ones, feel free to add them in the comments below.

Happy Recruiting!