One question which comes up frequently in our discussions with prospects and customers is how we ensure authenticity of the background checks which we do. The answer lies in the specifics of the type of the check.
Address Checks
It is imperative to physically visit the specified address and to confirm the residence by meeting the person being verified and/or the other residents. Certain verification agencies just call up the candidate and ask him/her for the address and that becomes their ‘address verification’. Needless to say, such a phone based check is completely useless. Only a site visit can ensure authenticity. It is even better if the field officer collects an authoritative copy of address proof to attach with his/her address verification report.
Employment Checks
Authentic employment verification will not rely on a telephone or email based verification with the reference or manager whose contact details have been given by the candidate. The only trustworthy method is to independently reach out to the HR team of the earlier employer and to verify the credentials directly with them.
Education Checks
As of now in India, the only reliable way to authenticate education qualification is to go to the certifying board (for X, XII classes) and the registrar’s office of the university / college / institute issuing the degree. Having the photocopy of the certificate or degree stamped and signed after such verification by the board or registrar’s office lends high reliability. Relying just on the photocopy without verifying with issuing educational body or relying on database checks for these is not recommended.
Criminal Checks
The lack of a centralized database to conduct criminal checks will continue to wreck havoc on true, authentic and reliable criminal checks in India. Till the time, home ministry sponsored CCTNS becomes fully active, the only recourse is to do criminal verifications at the local/city/state police levels. If the person has been moving around, such checks need to be done at each residence. Again, within these checks, it is important to have a stamped and signed document from the police authorities which clearly mentions that there are no such adverse references or records against the candidate.
Reference Checks
These are generally the weakest of the checks as there is a high chance of the candidate trying to rig them up by introducing ‘bogus’ references. So any personal references can immediately be ignored. Even with professional and academic references, care has to be taken to ensure that these are indeed what they claim to be and that they did actually have some association with the candidate. Additional research should be done over the Web and other people search databases to ensure that such references are not bogus.
So these are some of the points which go a long way to ensure authenticity of the background checks. What do you think? Feel free to share your own insights.
While I can understand that there is no current central criminal database search available in India. How can you know what cities to check for criminal records? For instance, in the USA we process a social security past address verification that gives us an idea of where a person has resided and then we proceed to check statewide and local county courthouses. How do you ascertain a past address history in India to enable proper criminal background checks?
Yes, getting to know the past address history is a challenge. Currently the recommended method is to have address proofs for earlier addresses and to do address checks on each of them.
Why cant database checks be relied on in the context of education checks?
As of now, there is no centralized database for education checks. The HRD Ministry sponsored National Database of Academic Qualifications is still in the development stage.