Background checks in India have become more commonplace for U.S. employers.
One reason is that Indian immigrants in the U.S. have increased in recent years. Estimates are that Indian-born immigrants in the U.S. number as high as 2.688 million, a 13-fold increase compared with 40 years earlier and a 50 percent increase in the past decade alone. Indians trail only Mexicans and Chinese as new arrivals in the U.S. annually, according to the Columbia Business School.
Another factor is that with globalization, U.S. companies increasingly outsource work to Indian companies or hire Indians to work in their homeland, performing services for their American employers. Investopedia reports that India’s top service industries include telecommunications, IT, and software, with Indians working for both domestic and international companies. By 2019, services made up 54.4 percent of India’s GDP.
Because there are few laws governing privacy and background checks in India, more U.S. employers are ordering international background checks in India on Indian citizens, not just for Indian immigrants to the U.S.
Whether Indian job candidates are living in their native land or as immigrants in the U.S., an international background check by Global Backgrounds helps to ensure that their histories are clean and their resumes are accurate.
Here are six things to know before hiring from India:
1. Indian Laws Do Not Limit Background Checks
The Indian Supreme Court has ruled in some cases that privacy is implied under the Indian Constitution’s Article 21, which guarantees liberty and dignity. Indian laws, however, do not specify privacy as a protected right. More importantly, no Indian laws prohibit or even control conducting background checks on Indian citizens.
2. Searches Are Slower Due to Paper Records
Indian criminal checks and civil court checks are searched in local-level courts. Records there — and elsewhere in India, actually — typically are on paper, not computerized. That doesn’t make searches impossible, but it does require a physical presence to conduct the search.
Expect criminal searches and civil court searches in India to be somewhat slower than in some other countries, but they usually can be done in seven to 10 days.
3. Falsification on Resumes Has Increased in India
The Society for Human Resource Management reports that several companies had to fire or ask for resignations from multiple Indian employees over fabrications or discrepancies in their resumes in 2012, with one company finding discrepancies in the resumes of 100 workers.
One in six job applicants in India lied on their resumes in 2017, SHRM reported via a study by AuthBridge, a data analysis company. That represented a significant increase — 48 percent — over the previous year.
An Indian background check by the experts at Global Backgrounds can help spot false resume claims through employment checks and education verification.
4. Indian Immigrants Are Well Educated
It’s not just numbers, but also the characteristics of Indian immigrants that make it likely they will be interviewed for jobs by U.S. employers. Many have college degrees and work jobs in the U.S. commensurate with their education.
“Compared with both the overall U.S.- and foreign-born populations, Indian immigrants are more likely to be highly educated, to work in management positions, and to have higher incomes,” says the Migration Policy Institute, a U.S. nonprofit that studies immigration trends. The institute reported that in 2019, bachelor’s degrees or higher were held by 79 percent of Indian immigrants at least 16 years old who are in the workforce. That's a stunning number, considering that just 33 percent of U.S.-born and all immigrant adults can make that claim, the institute says.
A Global Backgrounds education check will verify degrees earned at Indian colleges and universities, along with graduation and attendance dates. Grades typically are not available, but it’s legal for employers to require job candidates to obtain an official grade transcript and forward it to the U.S. employer.
5. Many Indians, in India and in the U.S., Speak Fluent English
India has the second-most English speakers of any nation, behind only the United States. English speakers in India are estimated at up to 129 million. That adds to their appeal as employees for U.S. companies, whether they remain in India, where wages are lower, or immigrate to the U.S.
The Pew Research Center, a U.S. nonprofit that generates facts from its research on social issues, reported that 74 percent of Indian immigrants in the U.S. in 2015 were proficient in English. That’s clearly better than immigrants overall in the U.S., only about half of whom are English-proficient, Pew says.
6. A High Percentage of Indian Immigrants Participate in the Workforce
Indian immigrants are strong participants in the workforce.
Among Indian immigrants age 16 and older, 72 percent were working at U.S. civilian jobs in 2019. That’s a higher percentage of participation than all foreign born in the U.S. (67 percent) and all native born (62 percent), according to the Migration Policy Institute.
The institute also reported that Indian immigrants are more likely than the U.S.- and foreign-born populations in the United States to be working in higher-level occupations, such as those in management, business, science, including information technology, and the arts.
Some Indian immigrants have a work history in their homeland as well as in the U.S. Global Backgrounds can perform domestic background checks and Indian background checks to cover a job applicant’s entire work history.
Global Backgrounds Searches in India
In addition to the searches mentioned above — criminal, civil court, education and employment history checks — Global Backgrounds can perform:
Credit reports
Identity checks
Passport validation
Security and terrorism database checks, for inclusion on watch lists and no-fly lists
Professional and personal references checks
Fiduciary responsibility check (officer positions, directorships held)