Spam is unavoidable, but sometimes its interesting. One such mailer I bumped into was a site called mumbex.com that provides fake experience letters. I’m not linking because I don’t want to send traffic to something illegitimate, but I’m sure most of you will still take the pains to key it in & have a look.  For such people I have embedded a tracker that will report your details to NASSCOM. For other obedient ones, here are some highlights from their website:

• ‘Our expertise‘ .. ‘Till date we gave certificates to 5000 candidates’ .. ‘Most of them are in middle management level in India and overseas’ .. ‘No Background verification failed till date’.. ‘Most of our customers came through referrals of our satisfied customers’
• ‘We are here to provide you the total certificates, id cards and everything’.. ‘Just have a bit confidence in the technology you are keeping the experience’..
• ‘Companies know this Fact‘ .. ‘Almost all the companies know that 50 to 60 % of the staff kept fake experience in their resume’ .. ‘But they never think of this during the boom time, because they are in deadly need of employees who at least have confidence in their technology’..

The business idea seems strong from a monetization perspective, but its an epic ethical fail when offered as a service. They have loudly spoken about how companies compromise credibility in view of the demand and how resumes are shared with clients. This service helps whoever it does, but it destroys the  credibility of every Indian IT company & employee. And I’m writing because I feel affected.

This is the age of startups, and there are tons of mom-and-pop shops operated in India by US desis. A candidate can claim to have worked with such a company, that is non-existent now as it failed, and produce an offer letter, an experience letter, or even for that matter, a salary slip. Reference calls can be rigged too. How should we trust the candidate knowing that there are agencies out there helping fraud? And what about those who actually availed of this service? I can understand there are desperate situations, but how can one be tempted to prick their credibility – it’s like losing your virginity, you get just one chance.

Although it brings business to verification agencies, it makes the process more cumbersome for recruiters. I think all it does is create distrust, not just at the domestic level, but at a global level considering that over 80% IT revenues come from international clients. There is no great way to battle this unless the HR databases are interconnected by industry giants such as NASSCOM (but that too can be misused in other ways).

A discussion few days back revealed the psychological impact of losing one’s credibility: incredulous people forever doubt others’ credibility. All we can do at the individual level is to keep away from such services and remember that we have a soul to answer.