Beyond the Resume: A Deep Dive Into Employment Verification Data

Welcome to the third installment of our Data Education series. In our other articles, we took an overarching look at what goes into a background check, took a deep dive into the critical role of criminal justice data, and examined how education verification can help close the fraud gap. 

Now, we turn our attention to another foundational element of a comprehensive background check: employment data.

Verifying a candidate’s professional history is about more than just checking boxes on a resume. It’s a vital step in helping you to better mitigate risk, fight fraud, and gives you a more complete and accurate picture of your future employee.

The Limitations of Traditional Employment Verification

In today's job market, a candidate’s resume or application is their primary tool for making a first impression. However, relying solely on this self-reported information can leave organizations vulnerable to fraud. In fact, a significant number of job applicants falsify information on their applications, with a considerable portion of these misrepresentations concerning their professional qualifications.

The traditional approach to employment verification—relying on manual phone calls or emails—can present numerous challenges that can lead to incomplete data and missed red flags.

According to an Equifax study of 254 HR professionals and executives, 71% of HR professionals have already encountered fake or misleading candidate details during the hiring process. The most common areas for this deception are employment history, educational background, and credentials/licenses. 

The problem is often compounded by a lack of confidence in internal detection methods: Only 20% of HR professionals are “very confident” in their ability to detect fabricated information.*

• It’s time-consuming: The process of playing phone tag, waiting for callbacks, and manually transcribing information from busy HR departments or former supervisors can significantly delay the hiring process. This challenge with technology automation is a top concern, with 50% of HR professionals reporting that using technology to automate workflows is a top challenge.*

• It’s not always reliable: There is a potential risk of "friendly fraud," where a candidate's friend or relative poses as a former manager to provide a glowing, but false, reference.*

• It can lack breadth: Manual verification often captures only a snapshot of a candidate’s work history and can easily miss employment gaps or unlisted past jobs that may raise red flags.

The Power of Verified Data: How It Works

A modern, data-driven approach to employment verification helps employers overcome these limitations by leveraging vast, centralized databases to help provide faster, more accurate, and more comprehensive data. These sources, which include the largest commercial employment verification database, The Work Number®, are typically more reliable than manual checks because the information comes directly from payroll records and employers.

The strategic use of verified employment data can help identify and possibly reduce the high cost of bad hiring decisions. A Harvard Business Review study found that 80% of employee turnover is due to bad hiring decisions. Considering that the turnover cost for entry-level hourly employees is typically 16% to 30% of their annual salary, anchoring hiring decisions in data can often help offer a significant return on investment.

Here are some ways verified data can help deliver critical insights:

• More Predictable Tenure History: Verified employment data helps reveal a candidate's overall track record of job stability. Employees who frequently leave jobs early are likely to do it again. For instance, Equifax research shows that in the manufacturing industry, 35% of employees who leave jobs within 60 days are more likely to repeat this behavior.** Analyzing this pattern can help determine a candidate's possible retention risk.

• Direct Employer Data: This is typically a more efficient and accurate source of employment information. In these vast databases, employers directly submit employment records. These databases contain billions of records, providing a quicker and typically authorized way to help verify a candidate's history.

• Payroll Records: For employment verification, direct access to payroll systems provides more accurate, often real-time data that is typically a more trusted source for verifying a candidate’s background.

• Direct Employer Contact: While modern data solutions can handle a majority of verifications instantly, some cases may still require direct outreach to a previous employer. However, by using data-driven solutions first, screeners can reserve manual verification for only the most necessary situations.

The ability to access verified employment data more efficiently can help lead to significant cost savings in hiring, reduce administrative burden, and help improve retention rates. For example, some companies in the retail industry that completed pre-employment verifications saw on average a 63% increase in one-year retention.**

Why Employment Data Matters: Fighting Fraud and Mitigating Risk

Beyond validating a resume, a robust employment verification process helps to overcome omissions and inaccuracies by helping:

• Validate Experience: Employment data provides an independent and authoritative source to help confirm a candidate’s professional claims. It helps verify key details such as job titles, and dates of employment, and helps verify the accuracy of the experience listed on the resume.

• Reduce Fraud: By cross-referencing self-reported information with verified records, employment data can serve as a powerful tool to help with potential fraud detection. It can also help more quickly highlight discrepancies, such as fabricated job histories or falsified promotions, helping to better protect the integrity of the hiring process.

• Assess Stability: A verified work history provides insight into a candidate’s career trajectory and job stability, which can be an indicator of future retention. This focus on better hiring decisions can help lead to substantial financial benefits: Equifax data projects that insights from pre-hire verifications could potentially improve 60-day retention by 4%.**

A More Holistic Approach: The Value of Integration

While each data category offers unique insights, the true power of more effective background screening lies in the integration of these diverse sources. When criminal, employment, and education data can be accessed and analyzed together, screeners can often develop a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of each candidate.

This more comprehensive approach is a hallmark of the TotalVerify data education series and a guiding principle for helping build more secure and better trustworthy teams.

Up Next in the Data Education Series

A strategic approach to employment verification, powered by more comprehensive and timely data, is often the key to building a workforce based on greater trust and confidence. In our next installment, we'll shift our focus to another foundational element of background screening: verifying academic credentials and education. We'll explore the value of this data and how it helps contribute to building a more holistic candidate picture.

*Source: Equifax survey of 254 HR professionals/executives, July 2025.
** Source: Equifax Data Study, 2025.