Employment History Verification - The Importance Of Employment History Verification

A candidate can be compelled to lie for a variety of reasons. This would include being laid off by a previous employer for reasons ranging from theft or immoral conduct or behavior. Candidates, for obvious reasons, would not want to disclose these facts, and might be tempted to lie on their resumes.

The Reason

It is estimated that up to 40% of resumes contained false or rigged information. In an employer's capacity, one needs to make sure that a person one is about to hire is really the person he or she claims to be. An employer may check if the candidate has graduated from a particular college, or if they were really with a particular employer at the time period mentioned.

When asked about the reason for a job change, candidates that are being untruthful usually give reasons like change of residence or personal growth. These reasons are good enough and very hard to detect as the person probably has rehearsed their story and it doesn't usually sound false. However, it is very important for the employer to look into the truth of the matter. Previous employers are not usually forthcoming and helpful in this regard due to legal implications. Most employers usually simply state that it is against their company policy to give out such details. If pushed, at the most they will confirm the date of the candidate's employment with them, and most won't go further than this.

What Should Be Done?

If you, as an employer, feel that something is not right, or if something sounds too good to be true, then the complete history of the candidate should be verified. This may not be possible for you in an employer's capacity, as most employers do not have enough resources or the experience to carry out such checks. It is advised to hire a professional firm to carry out the employment history verification, as well as a criminal record check.

At times, for jobs that require seniority, candidates tend tweak their resumes to be eligible. Candidates have been known to exaggerate previous experience. It is obvious that, in such cases, truth is likely to come out - if not by history verification, then otherwise, as such a person will probably not have the desired expertise or the experience to handle the job at hand, and this will obviously show on their performance. But this would amount to loss of time, energy and resources on the employer's part and would also cause a lot of inconvenience to everybody concerned.

Employment history verifications are a necessary business activity. They can detect potential problems before they arise and save companies a lot of time and money.