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I was glad to read in the Economic Times that Wipro has taken a major step in fighting candidates who acquire job positions by falsifying their resumes.

In a move which can benefit industry as a whole, Wipro has started sharing with competitors its database of job applicants who have faked information in their CVs. This is the first such initiative in the Indian IT industry.

IBM India, Infosys and TCS, too, have been quietly dismissing employees who have been caught fabricating their academic or professional backgrounds. In March 2006, the issue became public when Wipro Technologies not just fired some employees for faking their CVs, but also filed police complaints against them.

HR experts say that the manipulation of resumes, especially in collaboration with recruitment agencies, is assuming alarming proportions. They estimate that 15-20 % of resumes have some sort of misrepresentation , subtle or blatant. Inflated salaries, wrong designations and incorrect prior experience are seen as examples of subtle misrepresentation while falsely claiming to have worked for a company is regarded as falling in the blatant category.

Those – and here I would place more of the blame on job consultants – who indulge in such malpractices do not seem to realize that, for their short term gains, they are bringing disrepute, not only to themselves but also to their organisations, the industry and indeed the nation.