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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

Forging Ahead

Sriparna Chakraborty
Friday, March 30, 2007
Sriparna Chakraborty
Smita Jain (name changed) enjoys her work as a software professional. Her company, one of the best in storage technology, keeps her satiated with a good pay package while she gives her best to the job. On the outside, she is the face of a successful, well paid techie in the industry, but beneath all the happiness and determination, Jain holds light to a ‘shameful’ secret. Her resume was (remains) doctored.

However, Jain is not alone. A KPMG study — India Fraud Survey Report 2006 — which covered over a thousand organizations across India, reported 15-24 percent of resumes in India are fabricated. Pre-employment screening agencies that fight this menace say the number today could be as high as 30 percent. That would mean that there are many more Jains working in the same organization with forged resumes. And now with corporate world waking up to the fact that a large number of their workforce hitched rides on forged resumes to gain entry, has forgers like Smita and many others living in fear.

While one would expect discrepancies from young techies, it came as a complete shocker when U.S. based electronics retail giant, Radio Shack, ousted their CEO, David Edmundson, for faking his resume while another top executive from Bausch and Lomb was shown the door. In India, as well, an applicant for a top position in an IT company, with a requirement of twenty years experience, faked his IIT and IIM degrees. He almost got the job till a pre-employment background agency blacklisted him.

Mukund Menon, Vice President, HR, Satyam Computer Services, says that rising competition and the alluring IT industry pushed techies to take a shortcut and misrepresent facts in their resume. According to Nasscom findings, only 25 percent of the four lakh engineers are employable. Certainly, but not necessarily, a few from the remaining 75 percent do not mind indulging in a little phony act to enter the software world, notes Venkataraman RR, Senior HR Manager, Telelogic.

Last year, Wipro sacked close to hundred employees while Satyam Computers fired five hundred employees over a period of one year. They had given incorrect information about their work experience in their resume.


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