“The global market for pre-employment screening is worth $6-7bn; India accounts for barely 1% but as Chiranjit Banerjee, till recently director, South India, Quest Screening Services says, “It is growing at a furious pace as most IT and ITES jobs are being created here.” Quest Research is an Asian company dealing with background screening and has recently screened 800 employees of an IT major in India. And surprisingly, 20 software engineers have been sacked after it was found that they had lied about educational and professional qualifications as well as experience. Disturbingly, this is no one-off anecdotal instance.”   - Economic Times, New Delhi, 2004 “A spurt in employment opportunities generated by the booming IT-enabled services and business process outsourcing (ITES/BPO) sector has spun off an ancillary industry — companies screening the background of prospective employees. Between 5% and 10% of the candidates for a BPO/ITES job make false claims in their applications, according to industry sources. Overstatement of credentials and previous background by applicants has led to BPO firms seeking help from external professional service screening agencies to conduct identity verification, pre-employment status, past criminal records, and other background checks. The availability of fake qualifications/certificates and its rampant usage is resulting in BPO firms putting in place stringent procedures while hiring prospective employees. A large part of the demand for screening services, some firms state, has been driven by the regulatory requirements of customers in the US. According to Quest Research’s managing director (compliance), Scott Graham, the firm conducts between 5,000 and 10,000 background checks a month, which are generally concentrated around cities with a huge volume of recruitment. “BPO firms providing financial services find themselves far more vulnerable when it comes to recruiting the wrong candidates,” Mr. Graham said. “ - Economic Times, March 2004 “THEY have checked everything about me. Nothing has been missed. They have enquired about me at my school, college, computer institute, the institution where I did my post-graduate diploma, and of course my professors in the US and my previous employers," says Sriram, who has just been hired by one of the big five consulting firms, in the US. That's an experience that employees in India are increasingly set to encounter — especially in the IT sector. Background checks have been done before - but never as extensively or exhaustively as they are being done now” - Hindu Business Line, January 10, 2004

The business potential of the screening and related risk management services in India may be best summarized in the following quotation in recent leading publication: The global market for pre-employment screening is worth $6-7bn; India accounts for barely 1%