Should Education History Verifications be a Must Have?

Many jobs need a certain level of education, training, or accreditation. And because nearly seventy per cent of the Canadian labour force has some kind of post-secondary education, requiring a degree for a position is a way employers can screen applicants. However, an OfficeTeam report showed that nearly half of managers surveyed believed applicants lied on their resumés, and over 40 per cent of the time it was about education. Education history verifications will confirm degrees, attendance dates, and institutions attended, so employers can be confident they are hiring the best candidate.

Virtual Recruiting

Along with limiting in-person activities, Covid has accelerated the remote work trend. The Future of Work 2021 survey from Monster.ca revealed that 74 per cent of Canadian recruiters used virtual technology for at least half of their interviews and on-boarding.

But long before the pandemic, online job searching was well on its way to becoming the new normal. By 2015, online job searching had doubled in the preceding decade. To manage the large number of online applications, companies use an electronic Applicant Tracking System (ATS), which will scan all the resumés received and present the most qualified to the employer. Studies show that ATS programs reject approximately 75 per cent of applicants before getting to a hiring manager.

Applicants may try to misrepresent their education to bypass ATS programs, making it to the interview stage. At that point, an employer unwilling to do their due diligence using education history verifications could be duped into hiring a dishonest, underqualified candidate.

The Skills Gap

The Future of Work 2021 survey from Monster.ca also showed that almost a third of Canadian employers say the skill gap had increased from 2020 compared to 2019, while 85 per cent of employers said they had difficulty filling openings due to skills gaps. At the same time, apprenticeship programs are decreasing while higher education has not been able to pick up the slack.

Much like trying to sneak by ATS programs, applicants may exaggerate certain skillsets to qualify for a competitive job. Simply presenting proof of a degree is not always enough to confirm that an applicant has the purported skills necessary for the job. Triton’s education history verifications dig deeper to confirm the information on a candidate’s resumé is indeed accurate.

If you would like to learn more, our friendly experts are happy to help answer any questions you have about education history verifications. You can reach us by phone at 1-855-790-7516, by email at customerservice@tritoncanada.ca, or at our website.