The Need For Employment Screening: Is Desperation Creating More Resume Fraud

As Unemployment Rates are expected to hold steady for 2011 at 9%, more and more applicants are leaving interviews without employment. Over the last few months we have seen millions of new jobs being created, yet the unemployment rate is still slow to rise, if at all. Why? The answer may not be in the creation of jobs, but in the length of time applicants search unsuccessfully for work. Financial experts believe that the average American is jobless for six months before they can find work, even when they continuously search and interview for jobs. Job creation isn’t creating the problem, a pattern of ineffectual interviews is what’s keeping people unemployed. 

Experts believe that it will take years for employment rates to climb back to the success they had before the financial meltdown that began in 2008, and in the meantime, 13.5 million are searching in vain for work in the United States. The increase of job creation is growing, much more so than the actual employment rate, meaning that applicants are trapped in economic limbo of repeatedly succeeding at getting interviews and failing to get hired. Failed job interviewees aren’t just getting defeatist, they are getting desperate. Instead of promoting their assets, applicants are lying about their education, criminal records, and employment experience in the hope that employers will not look into their backgrounds.

Resume fraud isn’t just creating a brake in the chain of successful employment, its costing employers millions. Economic advisors believe that resume fraud is costing the United States billions of dollars annually. To affray these costs, employment screening is slowly being adapted into regular company procedure to prevent the large costs of fraud, with impressive results. Employment checks are not only starting to have an effect on resume fraud in the United States, its creating a ripple effect in other countries with higher resume fraud  aiming to lower hiring costs. In a time economic instability, employers shouldn’t focus on any new threat of financial losses that may or may not occur when seeking applicants. Instead, businesses should put their efforts into improving their employment infrastructure to create a progressive approach to successful hiring