I spoke some time back on the subject of Fake CRAs at ACRP’s 2018 Global Conference and I was surprised at how many individuals do not believe applicant fraudulence exists. My goal today is to reveal the breadth and depth of candidate fraudulence within the clinical research industry as the data we have gathered is startling. To date, we have already identified over 7000 fake CRAs in North America, which is approximately 21% of our CRA candidate pool.
I should note that I am speaking about true applicant fraudulence…not just the mere embellishment of qualifications.
When it comes to candidates’ embellishing their qualifications, I suspect that candidates have been embellishing their skills and achievements as well as stretching their employment dates and titles for as long as the resume or CV has been in existence.
Career Builder conducted a survey showing that 75% of Hiring Managers have caught a candidate lying on a resume. This was almost a 20% increase from their previous report showing 58% candidates had been caught in a lie.
The Society for Human Resource Management published results from a survey where they stated 85% of the 4,000 survey respondents uncovered a lie on a candidate’s resume or job application during the screening process.
Want to know something that is even more frightening? According to Forbes, 40% of Hiring Managers said they would progress a candidate through the hiring process even though they caught them in a lie and 7% stated they would still hire the candidate if they liked them.
In a true definition of fraud, candidates embellishing skills or stretching their dates could be classified as fraudulence. We agree that embellishing one’s credentials is wrong, however this type of embellishment is not what we would use to classify someone as a Fake CRA or Fraudulent Candidate. We define applicant fraudulence as someone who has completely falsified all or part of their credentials such as providing falsified resumes, fake degrees or fake references. Over the next three parts of this series I am going to address the three most commonly asked questions regarding the identification of these phony CRAs.
Investing in a Lifetime of Success,
Angela Roberts
www.craresources.com
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Perhaps this is why with 2 years of legitimate CRA experience with legitimate references and an honest resume, I can’t even get past the screening process to a phone interview.
Lynn, I am sorry to hear this! I am not sure of your situation (if your experience is recent/current or if there are other hurdles to overcome), but if you would like to send me a resume, I will be glad to look at it and see what we can do to help. My email address is aroberts[at]craresources.com.
I couldn’t agree more with Lynn- it is nearly an exact match of my own experience.
With every application I submit, I’m briefly reminded of the saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”
Allen, it is terrific to hear from you! I believe the hurdle you face is that you have been out of monitoring for a couple of years. Your background is excellent, unfortunately many of our clients want recent experience. With that being said, we do occasionally have clients who will wave this requirement – if you are able to round up references from your past monitoring position, we may be able to help.
Thank you Angela- I’ll be in touch with you soon.