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Bole toh, these Munnabhais grab IT, BPO jobs
Mini Joseph & Sujit John,14 Oct 

BANGALORE: They are the Munnabhais of the IT and BPO businesses. A qualified guy walks in for the job interview, but when the offer's made, it's an illqualified bloke who takes up the job. 

All too frequently, they get away with the con act. Imperson -ation is an issue that just about every company faces today. And experts say it's become possible on account of the massive scales of recruitment that makes close scrutiny a difficult task. Some companies conduct 150 interviews a day. 

Anjan Dutta, CEO of recruitment company Career Graph, says that in telephonic interviews, impersonation is in the range of 5% to 7%, while in face-to-face interviews it's about 1-2% of the total number of candidates interviewed. 

"Wipro sacked about 50 people last year for such impersonation and other kinds of faking, IBM sacked 6 and Accenture 5. Typically, only 50% of impersonators are eventually identified and sacked, the others continue in the job,"he says. 

B S Murthy, CEO of recruitment firm Human-Capital, says such incidents were rampant between 1998 and 2000 when US companies used to hire Indian engineers through telephonic interviews. 

"That trend is now resurfacing, predominantly in contract and temporary hiring wherein rules are often relaxed,"he says. 

But the Munnabhais are more daring today. Phil Calvin of Cisco India recently talked about an instance where a candidate interviewed through a video conference call turned out to be different from the one who eventually joined. 

Another IT company official, who did not want to be named, mentions this recent instance of a guy with very good communication skills who was interviewed. 

"But the one who joined could barely speak English. The HR department now knows that it's a clear case of candidate jockeying. The guy's going to be sacked soon,"he said. 

Experts say it is typically a friend who helps the ill-qualified candidate, though there are also instances where it's done for monetary gain. 

Kris Laxmikanth, chairman of Head Hunters, says: "Quick mass hiring gives a lot of loophole for such unscrupulous elements to creep in."A typical interview, especially in a BPO/call centre, lasts for no more than 3 or 4 minutes,which makes close verification very difficult, even if the candidate has provided his photograph. 

"But HR managers are now becoming extremely cautious of such Munnabhais,"says Laxmikanth.