How to Identify Resume Fraud

Looking for employment opportunities could be a very lengthy and frustrating process. You were so close to being offered the role, but someone with more experience comes along the takes the job. You are always the second in line to the person companies would like to offer.

This increases resume fraud – and it is best to identify doing a reference check and a verification with selected education institutions to ensure that the education they have provided are true and accurate.

In addition, you could look out for the following pointers:

VAGUE DESCRIPTION FOR SKILLS

It will be advised to have a quick phone chat or conduct a face to face interviews, probing into skills that they have mentioned to be of very vague in nature. If someone has shared that they are familiar with a skill, they should be able to answer you reasonably well when asked in detail.

Alternatively, you could also require candidates to come in for a one-day trial to understand if they really have the skill that is required, or you could offer them on a temporary basis, convertible to a permanent if they have shown to be a good fit with the Company.

QUESTIONABLE EMPLOYMENT DATES

Resumes who only have indicated the years are usually a big red flag to try to prolong their period of employment or, they could have hope that it could hide periods of unemployment. It will be good if you check with Candidates the months of the employment and to be truthful when sharing their period. Alternatively, there is always the presence of reference checks

OBSERVE BODY LANGUAGE

Imagine conducting an interview where the candidate is avoiding eye contact or appear to have memorized scripts prior to the interview. This are all signs of dishonestly, but it is also important to distinguish on whether this nervousness or dishonesty is.

Interview Questions invading personal space

While most candidates walk into an interview expecting to be asked to ask questions like "give a brief description of yourself", "tell me about your weak and strong points", or "why do you think you should be hired for this position", but most of the time an interview is more about that.

Interviewer might ask awkward questions during the interview that could have made interviewees uncomfortable. These questions mostly revolve around one's personal life and could be seemed as unrelated to the position that they are applying for.

Candidates often feels discomfort when being asked these questions due to the tone that the interviewer might have sound offensive or they are being caught off guard thinking that these questions are irrelevant to the interview.

Companies are now hiring employees not only based on their education level, they are looking for someone to join their company and is able to commit and perform together with the company on a long-term basis. By asking about questions that are out of the norm would allow the interviewer to understand where the candidate is coming from and whether they are fit for the position even better.

Questions like these can range from those related to your family status, religion, lifestyle to even personal habits.

Studies show that most candidates (40%) choose to answer the questions in a sensitive and tactful way. About 30 percent choose not to answer such questions, 20 percent gave their honest respond towards the questions, and the remaining 10 percent just walked out of the interview without responding. 

Candidates are encouraged to respond in a polite way indirectly, for example if being asked about whether there are plans of expanding your family, you can reply politely by saying "not anytime soon".

So, for candidates who are preparing to go for an interview, they should not resist answering questions that might be awkward to them. There is always a reason to the questions that is being asked by the HR, instead of being caught off guard when being question, take some time to prepare yourself for these questions on top of the norms.

Things to take note before sending your Resume

When looking for a position, sending of resume is usually the first thing to let an agency or company notice you. There are some points that candidates often overlooked when sending their resumes which leads them to not being selected in the first round of any interview.

Email Address

Having an informal email address gives the HR an impression of how casual you are, and that you might not be taking the position seriously. So, before you send a formal email of your resume to any HR, do take note of the email address that you would be sending your resume from.

Subject Title

HR personnel is usually overwhelmed with candidates sending them emails of their resumes and do not have time to go through each and every one. Naming your subject title with an appropriate name would help have time for the HR understand the purpose of your email.

Forward Emails

Forwarding emails will make the HR personnel wonder if you are busy that you don't have the time to erase 3 letters from the subject "Fwd:". It also shows the HR that you are applying for various companies at the same time.

Send the Updated Resumes

There are many candidates that send their resume over without updating it to the latest version. Indicating that the resume is up-to-date will help HR understand better about your past experiences and help you look for a suitable position more effectively.

Do a brief introduction of yourself in the email body, a 3-4-line brief description will do. Let the HR personnel know that you are sincere by texting the HR after sending the resume and do a follow up after a few days.

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Hiring the right person is key for start-ups – But how do you ensure that?

Being a start-up, your usage of resources is fundamental. You always think that the person whom you hire should and most importantly be able to contribute to the success and sustainability of your company. With this mindset, you set out in a search of looking for anyone with the skill set you are looking for.

The right people do not just come along with the right skill set, but also with other factors. You want to hire someone who will help establish the long-term success of your company.

These are other methods you could use to ensure you are hiring the right person for the start up.

Look within

That’s right! You should look within your current new hires. Being part of the team, and understanding the cultural fit – you should consider providing an incentive for your team to recommend someone else to join the team. The person they have recommended should have understood the team culture and the limitations of the company well, for them to provide some recommendation.

This is more important if you are looking to bring someone more senior into the company. Evaluate your current new hires and assess if they are suitable to have been promoted, and allowed to acquire that role.

You can also approach your customers for some recommendations, as they are the proper people who understand your deliverable.

Internship Program

Engage academic institutions to provide you interns. These interns would not just only bring about their academic knowledge and skills, but also about awareness of you as an employer. During their internship, you can assess their interest and skill set.

If there is a perfect fit, then you will be able to have a well-rounded new hire who does not require training.

Target competition

These group of people already have the skillset and knowledge required for the role. Getting your competitor’s employees is the best group to acquire with minimally training cost. However, they might be passive candidates – and if you are worried about face, you can always engage recruitment agencies like us to activate your search for you.

Recruiting Strategies for Starts-Ups

When you feel that your start-up business is ready to bring in additional headcount, it means that it is taking off well! I’m sure everyone starts with doing everything on your own, literally from A to Z – and you realised that it not possible on a long run.

There is always that mind block that tells you the what-ifs Do not be afraid to start hiring when it’s necessary. Everyone is worried about hiring the wrong people and result in mistakes as such. What is the top thinking process before you start hiring? What is the potential that you’ll want from the hires?

Hiring the right people, in the right PLACE

Keep yourself open to meeting more people and interview them. Assess and have your eyes on potentials and how they can be right for your future expansion. Hire for the right position that can help you to free up your time. Hire to care for your employees too! The unconventional way to do it is to care for each other regardless of rank, and status.

Understand the Company’s Directions

While you hire, you want to give your first and subsequent employees the idea and similar directions to achieve the goals. Look for employee who think-alike and is able to move fast enough with you. Of course, you got make sure that you have the Company’s goals and directions set out before you hire them in. Remember that not all employees are able to take constant changes with the Company, or what they felt as ‘uncertainty’.

Plan, and not over-hire

Always make sure that you your clients’ demands in priority. Measure the volume of work and make sure that the anticipation to hire the employees is ready for more projects ahead. Do not hire to send a signal to the employees that they’re no longer needed to thrive with the organization. To constant hire and re-train will cost more than you should.

Brand Referrals Networking

Referral hiring is one of the most useful tools to get the right talent pool in the shortest time. You will see that employees who referred talents will be able to share more on the applicants and understand them better if they really do fit the company’s directions and culture, which reduces “risks” of hiring and would have extensively shortened interviews and the hassle of going through background checks.

What Do You Look For In A Job? Here’s 5.

As much as most candidates look for career growth, I always come across candidates who are not able to explain or understand the kind of ‘growth’ they are seeking. What is it that is important to each individual when you move on to the next role?

However, it is good to consider whole lot of aspects while you try to figure out whether to take on the role. What matters most is, you need to be sure of the job expectations before you move into the role. Else, you might fall into a pit hole and regret the move because you did not make it clear.

Advancement

Always look into the companies on what are the kind of roles they can offer you to advance in the next few years while you are with them. Is there possibility of getting horizontal or vertical move into the role?

Always look internal first, before you explore external opportunities. There are some unknown factors when you move into a new role in a new organisation. Yet, internal opportunities give assurance that you know the culture and people.

Satisfaction and Trust

You spend minimally eight hours at work and you just want to make sure that you enter office each day, feeling great. You do not want anyone to be looking over your shoulders day in, day out with the work that you’ve been assigned to. At the end of the day, if you face get fatigued easily, you will have the tenancy to look out for your next job.

Stability

This may not be the best thing that could happen in the recent years, companies themselves are not able to ensure its stability, this is by far one of the top choices of job seekers. You can only use the past year’s company performance as a guide to move forward because it cannot guarantee the similar performance in the next few years.

Environment

Observe the people who are walking past you or even at the reception, look out for a similar pattern in the workers. Do they give you a smile or even say ‘Hello!’. They might not know you but the interaction and image that are portrayed do say something about the company.

Benefits

You do not want to end up taking lesser than your current role by looking into your overall remuneration package. Some may be enticed by the amount that was given to you in your basic salary, yet when you look into the other benefits, you are getting so much lesser than what you have. For instance, if the company does not offer health insurance, you will realise that you will be spending more out of your pocket.

How to get a "YES" from the right candidate?

It is really no point attracting the right candidates, only to be rejected later. Not only do we understand how long it takes to nurse that broken heart – we also understand how much resources you have wasted such as your precious time. 

Over-Promise

Funny getting this as a reminder from a Recruitment Company? This is the fundamentals and we practise this daily in our course of work. Do not oversell your company’s expansion plans or company’s profile, or the amount of exposure or professional development plans you have for the right candidate. You might be able to get the right candidate to say YES for now, but definitely not for later when the right candidate is in your employment. You do not also want to be known as the workplace without integrity. 

It is fundamental for both the hiring manager, as well as the Candidate to have clarity on the roles and responsibilities and value of the roles and responsibilities. 

Understand your Competitors

Do your homework. You should understand not just competitors who are selling similar products or services, but other companies offering a similar position. To get your right candidate to say YES, you will need to understand his value first. Providing a low salary package would mean you do not appreciate his value, while providing a high salary package would mean you are overstating his value. 

Understand your RIGHT Candidate

What do your right candidate value? Through engaging your right candidate and understanding this, you can have this position closed not only now, but later. Employers need to understand what candidates value – and it is always not just the name of the position, or salary – but personal and professional growth. 

Every point of engagement would then represent an opportunity to share what you can offer, and to reinforce your employer branding and values. Convince them your workplace is the ideal choice. The best time to share this is during your orientation where they feel a part of your organization and is embraced into the culture. Provide opportunities for your new entrant to share about their challenges, and always provide an open communication between the reporting superior and the right employee. 

Respecting your Candidates

This means no last-minute cancellations, or having interviews with candidates after their interview time scheduled. You might have the bargaining power now – but not at the expense of your reputation. Letting candidates wait for you do not reflect candidate’s commitment and interest to the position, but it shows how your companies “respect” people.  

The emphasis of interview questions should be related to work instead of personal questions. Good candidates are more interested in sharing how they can contribute, and share what they have learnt over their past experiences. This also means you are transparent with your Candidates so as to clarify their expectations. 

Interviews are a two-way process. In this age, you are not just evaluating your candidates but candidates are evaluating you. Give a chance for your good candidates to ask questions. 

Short Response Time

Once you are done with the interview, please keep your response time short. You should inform candidates 2 days after their application or their interview if they have been shortlisted or selected. Candidates, especially good candidates will not wait for too long. 
You do not want to be the one crying over spilt milk. 

Ease Your Mind with Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)

Some organizations have come to understand the significant importance of outsourcing the recruitment needs to recruitment firms. These days, HR are moving into the strategic roles and will want to reduce as much administration as they could, in order to focus on the planning and executing of strategic directions.

With RPO, HR can now finally let go of administrative works from their shoulders. Recruitment can really be a timeless and boundless process within the department. This process will repeat itself and HR practitioners will not like such monotonous nature in job. In fact, albeit spending time with administrative matters, HR practitioner always understands that efficiency in the key in delivery solutions. How much have these administrative matters tie you down and you realized that you were unable to sit down to resolve the key and prioritized matters?
Look for the right firms in supporting RPO, they are present to ensure that it lightens your loads in many areas of work such as scanning through resumes, communicating of job scopes, coordinating of interview arrangements and even offering and signing contracts with selected candidates.

While RPO firms help reduce the burden on administration, organizations can also further leverage on the pool of candidates. RPO firms will also have the eagerness and selfless plan to observe analytic trends and results. Not only does RPO firms provide administrative services, they may even help you on analytical data. RPO might even provide you wages and benefits comparison among different industries.

RPO firms would also want to position themselves as strategic partners. RPO would want to allow organizations see the importance needs for future growth. Having integrated both services would help organizations achieve great clarity in recruitment, administration and management affairs. It continuously builds the connections that can produce greater productivity.