SME Candidates 6 times more likely to fail background check than MNC candidates

NEW DELHI: Candidates for SMEs (small and medium enterprises) are six times more likely to fail a background check than those for an MNC (multinational corporations), according to a report by background verification firm Authbridge.

The study also found that as a result, SMEs are 50% more likely to hire the wrong candidate compared to MNCs.

The report also found that the number of people failing background checks had been falling in the last two years from 7.5% in 2016 to 6.8% in 2018, and attributed this to greater awareness that verification was being carried out. The report also found that the maximum number of discrepancies occurred in North India, with Chandigarh being the city with the highest percentage of discrepancies (7.8%), followed by Pune (7.5%).


The report also found that the maximum number of discrepancies were found in the 35-45 age range. The BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) sector had the maximum number of discrepancies.

A significant 0.83% of candidates also failed drug tests, down from 1.23% in 2017, but up from 0.77% in 2016.

Ajay Trehan, CEO of AuthBridge, said, “Our annual trend report is the product of analysing the outcome of millions of checks conducted across a year. It drives our objective of being knowledge partners to the corporates, providing them valuable insights around latest data available in India around verification.”