Wading Through the World of Fake Resumes
There seems to be lots of supporters for the people who fake their resumes. The fact is that the practice of faking resumes is wide and rampant–considered to be a norm rather than an exception. The resumes are seldom faked in India; it is done in the U.S. by the so-called IT-consulting companies (read staffing or staff-augmentation companies) run by the Indian fraternity in the U.S. It’s a remarkably well-run network and everyone knows what’s happening–the prospective employee, the company, the middleman agency, the prospective client, the lawyers, and the rest. Fake resumes are the equivalent of counterfeit goods. Supporting this network is the H-1B process that these people manage to royally hoodwink. One will find several of these people working for major companies like TCS, Wipro, HCL, Satyam, Cognizant and the like.
The reason for this self-perpetuating practice is that the supply-demand equation is still in favor. There is no single point of breakage in the chain. Even if these companies get down to cleaning the system, it’s a task that cannot be accomplished. Legions of HR people would be needed to check the antecedents of every employee including verifying the authenticity of every project that she / he has worked on. It will be a massive disruption to the business that needs to hire thousands in a month.
Such sporadic incident of TCS firing 20 people doesn’t help. In the course of firing these 20 people, TCS might not have realized that they have added another 100 with fake resumes.
Clients!! Beware of Indian tech professionals, especially if you are hiring them in the US. Which is not to mean that there are no genuine people; there are, but they are obscured by the fake ones.
Here are some pointers to improve your chances of hiring the right candidate:
1. Stay away from people who have done their MS in the US, unless they are from one of the top schools and their resume states that they have less than 3 years or no experience.
2. Stay away from recruiting through US-based staff augmentation companies (called IT consulting companies), typically the H-1 shops. Instead, go through one of the large IT companies to recruit your contract staff and ask for people who have been with them for more than 4 years in India and the US.
3. Look for candidates who have been hired fresh out of tech schools in India; these guys would not have faked their resumes at the beginning of their careers.
4. Check immigration papers, educational certificates and references from past projects thoroughly.
5. Interview rigorously beyond checking technical proficiency.
I have done my MS from one of the not-so-top schools. The same picture looks different, if you change your viewing angle . Lets say clients hire candidates from only top schools from the US. What is top, top 50, top 100? Lets say it is top 50, for the sake of argument. 50 schools will have 100 students each on average (combining grad and undergrad student populations). 5000 people per semester or 10,000 people per year, is that enough to fulfill the IT demand by clients? Seems very unlikely. Are you better off hiring a computer science major from a not-so-top school or a non-related major say civil engineer from a top 50 school. In my opinion, the former is better if the candidate has a decent GPA, because the job is an IT job.
On faking resumes, it seems that the consulting market shuns anyone who shows less than 3 years experience. Why is that so is anybody’s guess. What are the choices available to an foreign CS graduate on a visa who’s looking for a computer science job in the US. Very few companies want to hire students on OPT because they fear they will return to their country if their H1B is not approved. If a foreign graduate doesn’t get an H1B approved before a year, s(he) has to leave the United States. Of course, you need a company to hire you and then sponsor you for a H1B (a vicious loop, if you can notice). Hiring managers for full-time jobs (and associated HR personnel) rely on a circle of friends and relations to do the hiring, moreover they are reluctant to sponsor an H1B. With full-time jobs out of the fray and contract job requiring 3 years or more experience, what other options does a fresh CS graduate have (Note: maximum of 1 year of internship is allowed according to F-1 visa regulations. F-1 student regulations also prevent the student from employment outside school which prohibits the student from gaining the ‘years of experience’ required by contract jobs). Moreover contract job requirements run like the example shown below (not real of course):
‘ Atleast 2 years of experience with Oracle 10i/10g
Atleast 1 year experience with XML
Atleast 4 years of experience with C++/C#
2 or more years of experience with SLDC lifecycle and RUP’
How could you get these years of industry experience if you were pursuing legally pursuing grad/undergrad studies under a student visa???? Note : Internship experience cannot be accumulated for more than a year in any case, maximum of 2 including possible CPT.
If the industry shuns all those beyond the top 50 schools, then two things will happen. One, it has to train local people to perform as well as these motivated individuals who besides having the basic foundations of computer science also managed to survive the rigor of advanced computer science coursework. US will have to lose these graduates to other countries who will contribute to their economies. Is this what the US wants? This being said, I am all for abolition of fake resumes. Surreal requirements will always attract fake resumes.
Good blog entry. Thanks for making those of us in the U.S. aware of the article. However, I disagree with your “stay away from US MS recipient” recommendation. That’s one of the easiest parts of a resume/CV to verify. I’d rather select someone with that background because (1) they’ve been exposed to U.S. culture and English and (2) I have a better idea of the relative quality of the U.S. college programs. Other than the IIT and REC colleges, objective information on college programs in India, both undergraduate and graduate, is hard to come by. Of course, all that matters for some firms is the low cost rather than the quality; however, they won’t do appropriate due diligence anyway and will be the ones who get burned by faked CVs.