Ask Ssamba
CREATIVE HUMAN RESOURCE IDEAS
CREATIVE
CV Doctoring
“CV Fraud” Ever Heard of it?
About the Author
Steven Ssamba - Is a
HR Practitioner and HR
writer. Currently he
works with Medecins
Sans Frontieres. He holds a BA (Econ),
and Post Graduate Qualifications in
Training and Development and in Human
Resources Management
T oday’s employers should be
very vigilant about job
applicants who present
fraudulent CVs. The high
unemployment rate in the
country for which the available
figures are not accurate is among
other factors for the proliferation
of CV fraud.
CV fraud is not a new thing in
today’s workplace; many of us
can attest that somewhere in that
document that serves to market
us to a prospective employer lays
several inaccuracies.
The high unemployment
rate in the country is
responsible for
proliferation of CV fraud
Most of it is doctored and far
from the truth. We have lied
about the institutions we have
attended, the computer trainings
VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1
we have never undertaken,
memberships to social,
management or academic
organizations that we have never
subscribed to.
Job titles and job descriptions
never assigned, years under or
over the actual applicant’s age,
phony periods of employment
when one was out of a job, not
to mention the various hobbies
one has never pursued. When it
comes to causes of CV fraud the
list is endless and almost
inexhaustible.
A candidate’s lacking in the
desired competencies for the
advertised position is what
human resource professionals
claim to be the cause CV fraud.
Some individuals may actually
possess the required person
specifications, but are merely
dishonest, so they alter their CVs
and add false information
possibly to appear to exceed the
desired profile.
What is not surprising though is
the fact that some employers too
are culprits in this practice.
As job vacancy advertising
becomes increasingly expensive,
it is hard for a job advert to
indicate all the possible desired
requirements. Dishonest
managers then tell favored
18 November 2007
Volume 1 Issue 1
candidates what should appear
on their CVs in order to stand a
chance for an interview. In
many cases the information that
Job seekers lack skills,
experience, and qualifica-
tions; so they doctor their
CVs to stand a chance
for an interview
is used as short listing criteria is
given away to such prospective
employees.
It is also common practice for
current employers (or other
officials listed as referees) to write
fake and fictitious
recommendations and testimonials
for individuals seeking
employment elsewhere.
The consequence is that many
candidates stand out as model
employees from their previous
organizations. This also makes a
mockery of the practice of
reference checks, since all
concerned parties (candidates,
vacancy advertiser, and previous
employer) are involved in the
mendacity.
From the look of things, CV
fraud is here to stay, since there
exist numerous stumbling blocks
to ending this practice.
No manager wants to destroy the
chances of an individual seeking
to be employed in another
institution, so they help by writing
a testimonial that heaps more than
truthful praises on the candidate.
The recruitment department on
their part is pressured by top
management to include a favored
individual; it could be a family
member or someone close on the
interview shortlist.
Upcoming unethical headhunters
compound the problem. These
companies that are slowly but
surely sprawling up in Kampala
are in no doubt here to make
money. So they will train job
seekers how to write a phony CV.
An individual is in all cases
charged a commission or fee if
they deposit their CV with them.
If they have a chance to be
recruited (so that the headhunter
charges a commission on their
first salary), their CV had better be
outstanding.
More often than not failure to
catch a fraudulent candidate
results into the hiring of unfitting
talent, which will cost you money
both directly and indirectly.
Hiring the wrong candidate means
that you have just spent scarce
funds on a recruiting exercise for
“Nothing”.
The candidate might as well have
been hand picked so as to avoid
spending money on
recruitment. Also, hiring a
candidate that has doctored
their CV means hiring a
dishonest individual.
This wiliness will sooner or
later manifest its self in how
VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1
the recruit handles business
dealings especially those
involving organization funds.
What recruiters need to do is
to deploy vetting and
screening practices in order to
circumvent falling victim to
CV scams.
Some Employment
agencies are
actively involved in this
absurd vice of creative
CV beautification
Such screening practices could
however infringe on privacy
or labor laws according to
recruitment specialists but
discouraging this fraudulent
presentation of information
should be priority.
CV fraud is criminal. Yes it is
criminal if fraud means
“wrongful or deliberate
criminal deception intended to
result in financial or personal
gain at the expense of others”.
To catch the criminals, CV
screening and vetting can be
employed, but these are
complex procedures. First of
all, because all the parties can
be culprits there will definitely
be a lack of willingness to
tackle the problem. Further,
many individuals at interview
panels are not trained at all in
interviewing and probing.
Some panelists already have
in mind who will take the job,
meaning that the interview
process is a mere formality or
like in today’s political talk
“for mere propaganda value”.
18 November 2007
Vetting costs money and time
in terms of investigations
(inquiries) to be made - a cost
so conveniently avoided in
order to speed up the process
of recruitment. Also some
qualifications can now be
bought; many members of
parliament who have been
caught in the act can attest to
this.
And they have only been
caught thanks to their political
rivals. Vetting equipment
such as polygraph tests (at
least for top executive
positions), honesty tests
administered by psychologists
are expensive and maybe
unheard of in Uganda.
This makes the likeliness of
recruitment of unsuitable or
unworthy talent more than
inevitable. Recruitment of
untrustworthy talent is at
humongous proportions in the
public sector, and the private
and non-governmental sectors
are not left out, especially in
the recruitment of middle
manager positions.
If statistics were available, the
figures would be shocking.
The number of managers and
other individuals embellishing
their CVs cause companies to
lose out in the future since
their CVs are not
representative of what they are
or what they hold.
Many times however the
stumbling blocs referred to
here are the perfect alibi to
relax vigilance on pre-
employment screening efforts.
Employing the wrong talent
speeds up the organization’s
(and country’s) down ward
trajectory, since it emphasizes
that employers are not
recruiting and selecting
individuals on the basis of the
inherent requirements of the
job. This only promotes
getting candidates into the
workplace that will turnout to
be liabilities rather than
assets.
If organizations are ready to
be caught in the debate that
CV fraud is all but hype, time
will tell the story. Otherwise
they need to close the gap of
opportunities to prevent this
fraud.
must know that the company
will resort to s evere
disciplinary enquiries should
they discover either before or
after the recruitment that an
individual misrepresented
their personal facts.
Where you do your own
interviewing, accord the
interviewing process the
veneration it deserves.
Interviews should be well
planned and panelists selected
at the job design stage.
Behavioral interviewing is the
recommended style for the
selection of the best candidate.
This article was researched and
written by Steven Ssamba and it
can be redistributed but should
not be modified.
Do you have any issue at the
work place for which you would
like some ideas?
Send your questions to :
ssamba_steven@yahoo.co.uk
In the next issue of Ask
Ssamba, I shall be discussing
a modern method of skills
inventor y management
aimed at facilitating Talent
Management and Employee
development and deploy-
ment. Don’t miss sharing it
with those who need creative
Human Resource Ideas.

Reference checks are a positive means of

identifying wrong information in a candidate’s CV

Some managers are
committed to a foolproof
recruitment exercise but
ex t e rn al p r es s u r e an d
influence all adulterate their
efforts and authority.
It is recommended that if you
are seeking the right talent
and yet you lack the right
tools to do this, hire a
professional agency to do the
job for you. It costs money to
hire one, but the cost is
negligible when compared to
what you could lose in terms
o f m o n e y, t i m e a n d
productivity after recruiting
the wrong employee.
Ask Ssamba
If an individual is too smart to
beat these, a performance
CREATIVE HUMAN RESOURCE IDEAS
appraisal system, future post
recruitm ent back ground
checks from previous or ghost
employers should be used to
uncover their dishonesty.
Most importantly this fraud
could be nipped in the bud if
all job adverts carry the threat
to prosecute any applicant
who will be found to have
deliberately distorted their
facts on a CV.

Companies should show some

strictness. Potential fraudsters

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1 18 November 2007 Page 3