A few years ago, new or potential employees just had to provide a reference letters or contacts of previous employers to the new employer.  The new employer would use the reference letters as supporting documents regarding their work performance and would contact the referees to ask some standard questions about his/her past work behavior, job tasks and reason for leaving etc.  information, such as:

• Title
• Dates of employment
• Reason for departure
• Salary and bonus
• Reporting manager
• Graduation date
• Academic background
• Professional qualifications
• Credit check
• Bankruptcy check
• Directorship check
• Civil litigation check

For example, new employees are given a reference check form to complete which they have to hand in before their start date or within the first month of their commencement.  This form will be passed to the Reference Check Consultancy Firm to start the background check process.  Candidate reference check reports would be provided to the employer in a timely manner depending on the response rate of parties contacted for verification.  This report will highlight any discrepancies identified during the background check.  There are generally two types:

• Minor discrepancies may just require a brief explanation or supporting documentation and the file will be closed, e.g. slight discrepancies in dates of employment/graduation or salary amount. 
• Major discrepancies would require supporting documentation and a valid justifiable reason, e.g. more than 3 months discrepancy in employment dates or more than 5% discrepancy in salary or incompletion of a course when you declare that you have completed it. 

So what happens when discrepancies have been identified in the report?  Well, the Human Resources Department will first contact the employee regarding the results of the report and request for explanation and supporting documents.  If the employee can provide a valid justification with supporting documents within a reasonable time frame then the issue(s) would be resolve.  Otherwise, the employee’s reporting manager would be informed for the situation and if in the end the employee fails to provide evidence t o support their claim then they could be terminated immediately.

“We often repeatedly remind the employees to fill in the reference check form very carefully with 100% honestly but people just don’t seem to realize the seriousness of any false or purposely undisclosed information until they are on the edge of losing their job…” a Human Resources Executive at a leading Investment Bank expressed. 

Candidates should take note that all of the factual information on their CV and reference check form is correct.  Any incorrect or misleading or purposely undisclosed information about your past work experience has a high possibility of surfacing during the background check.  Therefore to save yourself, your hiring manager and recruiter from any embarrassing situation, risk of losing your job and reputation damaged:

Here a few quick tips:

DO make sure that all information on the reference check form are correct.

DO write clearly and illegibly on the form otherwise it may be understood as faulty information.

DO provide supporting documents if you have them readily available, such as, copy of certificates, pay slips, reference letters and tax form.

DON’T just fill in any figure or date if you can’t remember.  Try to find supporting documents with the data and if you can’t find any then make a note on the form that it is an estimate figure etc.

Most importantly, DON’T LIE.