Background verification exists because people misrepresent themselves during hiring. That is not a cynical statement it is simply the reason the industry exists. The question that most HR professionals have never been able to answer with precision is: where, exactly, do candidates lie the most?
The data on this is more detailed than most people realize. Across AMS Inform’s verification operations spanning 160+ countries, and corroborated by industry-wide research, patterns emerge that are both surprising and instructive. Understanding where discrepancies are most likely to appear and why makes background verification a sharper, more targeted tool rather than a bureaucratic box-tick.
Here is what the data shows.
Education Credentials: The Single Largest Category of Discrepancy
Education verification consistently produces the highest discrepancy rates in background checks across virtually every market and industry. Across the background verification industry globally, research suggests that between 25% and 30% of education credentials listed on CVs contain some form of inaccuracy, exaggeration, or outright fabrication. In India a useful bellwether for global trends employment-verification discrepancies rose 44% between FY21 and FY24, from 9.9% to 14.26%, as companies tightened checks. The education picture is comparably grim.
The nature of education discrepancies varies in severity. At the minor end, candidates inflate their final grade listing a 2:1 when they received a 2:2, or claiming a distinction in a professional qualification where they received a merit. More significantly, candidates list degrees from institutions they attended but never graduated from, fabricate completion years to hide extended study periods, or list qualifications that are simply invented.
At the most serious end, degree mill fraud the purchase of fraudulent diplomas from institutions that appear legitimate but confer no real academic standing is a growing global problem. Certificate fraud has increased significantly in the years following the pandemic, as more recruitment shifted to digital processes that made fraudulent documents harder to scrutinise visually. Among younger candidates, the honesty gap is wider still: nearly half of Gen Z candidates say they have lied on job applications.
The sectors where education credential fraud appears most frequently are healthcare (where professional qualifications directly affect patient safety), financial services (where regulated qualifications are legally required for specific activities), and senior leadership roles (where MBAs and postgraduate qualifications are commonly used to justify seniority and salary expectations).
Why does education discrepancy remain so prevalent? Partly because, until recently, verifying a degree required contacting an institution directly a process many employers skipped due to the time and friction involved. Partly because digital certificate forgery has become increasingly accessible. And partly because the stakes feel lower to candidates. Misrepresenting a past job feels riskier than inflating a grade, even though both are dishonest and both can lead to dismissal if discovered.
Employment History: Duration, Title, and Reason for Leaving
Employment history is the second major category of discrepancy, and it is where the patterns are most nuanced. The three most common types of employment misrepresentation are manipulation of dates, inflation of job title or seniority, and misrepresentation of the reason for leaving a role.
Date manipulation is extremely common. Candidates routinely adjust start and end dates of previous roles to eliminate or minimise employment gaps. A four-month gap following a dismissal might be reduced to six weeks by adjusting adjacent dates by a matter of months changes that are difficult to detect without proper verification. Research from background screening providers consistently finds that employment date discrepancies appear in between 15% and 20% of checks conducted at the senior level.
Job title inflation is pervasive. A candidate who held the title “Senior Analyst” may list themselves as “Head of Analysis.” A “Sales Executive” becomes a “Sales Director.” In smaller companies where role titles are fluid and informal, this can be particularly difficult to verify definitively but the discrepancy matters because title claims feed directly into salary expectations, role responsibilities, and perceived levels of experience.
The reason for leaving is the most systematically misrepresented element. Candidates who were dismissed for performance or conduct issues almost universally describe their departure as voluntary, a mutual agreement, a strategic decision, or a pursuit of new opportunities. Reference checks conducted by skilled interviewers as opposed to simple employment confirmations — frequently uncover a very different narrative from former managers.
Professional Licences and Certifications
Professional licence and certification discrepancies are less frequent than education or employment discrepancies but disproportionately serious when they occur. The reason is straightforward: professional licences exist specifically to protect the public, clients, or regulated systems from unqualified practitioners. When someone claims a licence they do not hold, the consequences of acting on that claim can be severe.
In healthcare, this category of fraud is consistently the most dangerous. Practitioners who have had clinical licences suspended or revoked for issues ranging from clinical negligence to substance abuse to criminal conduct have been found operating in gig-based and agency staffing roles where verification was inadequate. Regulatory bodies regularly publish alerts about individuals found to be practising without valid registration.
In financial services, individuals with sanctions or restrictions placed on their regulatory registrations by bodies like the FCA or SEBI have been found in roles where those restrictions should have disqualified them. In each case, the issue was not that the restriction was hard to find it was publicly registered. The issue was that nobody checked.
Across the professions, the data suggests that approximately 10% to 15% of candidates who list professional certifications on their CVs have some form of discrepancy whether an expired licence listed as current, a qualification claimed before it was formally conferred, or a revoked certification listed without disclosure.
Identity: The Fastest-Growing Discrepancy Category
Identity fraud in the hiring context was historically a minor category rare, and associated primarily with individuals attempting to hide serious criminal histories or immigration status. Both of those drivers still exist. But a new driver has emerged and is growing rapidly: AI-generated identity fraud.
The proliferation of accessible generative AI tools has made it easier than ever to create convincing fraudulent identity documents passports, driving licences, proof of address, and educational certificates. HireRight’s 2025 Global Benchmark Report found that one in six employers had already experienced identity fraud during hiring, while another three in ten were unsure if it had occurred. Only three in five employers globally even conduct identity checks as part of their pre-employment screening programme a gap that is being exploited.
The practical implication is that identity verification can no longer rely on visual document inspection alone, whether performed manually or by first-generation automated systems. Biometric matching confirming that the person presenting documentation is the same person whose image is on that documentation is now an essential component of any robust identity check. Liveness detection, which distinguishes between a real person and a digital spoof, is increasingly standard in leading verification platforms.
Criminal History: What Candidates Conceal and How
Criminal history discrepancy operates differently from other categories because in many jurisdictions, candidates are legally permitted not to disclose certain spent or rehabilitated convictions. The discrepancy that matters is not the non-disclosure of legally protected information it is the non-disclosure of convictions that candidates are legally required to declare.
The offences most commonly concealed that a background check reveals fall into predictable patterns. Financial crimes fraud, theft, embezzlement are most frequently concealed by candidates applying for financial roles, where they are most relevant. Violence-related offences are most commonly concealed by candidates for roles involving access to vulnerable people. Drug-related offences are frequently concealed across all sectors.
What makes criminal history discrepancy particularly complex is jurisdictional variation. A conviction in one country may not appear on a domestic criminal check in another. Candidates who have worked across multiple countries an increasingly common profile in the global workforce may have histories in multiple jurisdictions, any one of which could contain relevant information. Multi-jurisdiction criminal checks, conducted by a provider with genuine in-country reach, are the only reliable way to address this.
The Gap Check: Employment Gaps as a Proxy for Concealment
Employment gaps deserve specific attention because they are both a standalone category of misrepresentation and a proxy for other categories of concealment. When candidates manipulate dates to close gaps in their employment history, the question is always: what are they closing the gap around?
In AMS Inform’s experience, the answer is most commonly one of three things: a period of unemployment following a dismissal for cause; a period of time spent in legal proceedings or serving a custodial sentence; or a period of work with an employer the candidate has chosen not to disclose either because the departure was acrimonious, because the role was in a sector they are trying to move away from, or because the reference would be negative.
Gap checks systematic verification of what a candidate was doing during undisclosed periods are among the most high-signal checks in a comprehensive BGV programme. A well-conducted gap check is not an accusatory exercise. It is simply a factual one.
Implications for BGV Strategy
Understanding where discrepancies are most likely to occur should directly shape how organisations prioritise and design their verification programmes. For most organisations, a few practical principles follow.
Verify education for every role, not just senior ones. Education discrepancy is distributed across all levels. A junior analyst who fabricated a degree is as much a risk as a senior one potentially more so, because they are less likely to be scrutinised.
Conduct employment verification through a structured reference process, not just a confirmation call. A simple call to confirm that someone worked somewhere between two dates catches title and duration discrepancies but misses the most valuable information: why they left, how they performed, and whether a former employer would re-hire them.
Apply multi-jurisdiction checks proportionally. For any candidate who has worked or lived in more than one country, domestic-only checks are inadequate. The proportion of the global workforce with multi-country backgrounds is growing every year.
Use identity verification technology that includes biometric matching and liveness detection. Visual document inspection, whether human or automated, is no longer a sufficient control against identity fraud. HireRight’s data showing that 40% of employers either don’t conduct identity checks or aren’t sure if identity fraud has occurred in their hiring is a gap that cannot persist.
Weight your BGV effort toward the checks with the highest discrepancy rates. Education first, employment history second, professional licences for regulated roles, criminal history for roles involving access to vulnerable people or financial assets.
Conclusion
Candidates misrepresent themselves during hiring across every industry, every seniority level, and every geography. That is not a moral judgment it is a documented pattern with well-understood drivers. Ninety-four percent of employers now conduct some form of background screening. Eighty-five percent of those employers have caught candidates lying. The organisations that use background verification most effectively are those that understand where misrepresentation is most likely to occur and design their verification programmes accordingly.
Not every check needs to be equally exhaustive. But the checks that are run should be run properly, verified against primary sources, and interpreted by people who understand what the data is actually saying.
The goal of background verification is not to assume the worst of every candidate. It is to confirm the best and to catch the exceptions before they become expensive problems.
