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Anyone looking for a job knows that big gaps on their CV between finishing one job and starting another can be a red flag for employers. The temptation is often to tweak lengths of employment to extend employment periods and minimise the gaps, but it this really a good plan?

Most employers now have a detailed process for checking out the backgrounds of the people who are going to work for them. This might include asking you for a DBS check if you are working in a position of trust, or basic identity checks to make sure of your immigration status in the UK. Another part of this process is fact-checking your CV, and it is at this point of the process when any gaps in your CV might become obvious.

Studies suggest that a significant number of CVs aren’t factually correct. In fact, up to 80% of CVs have been found contain either slight exaggeration or downright lies, potentially leading employers to hire unsuitable candidates. The growing issue of CV fraud has led to many recruiters beefing up their checks on CVs and looking into any employment gaps.

Understanding Employment Gaps

An employment gap just means a period of time between jobs which the candidate has left unaccounted for. Minor gaps of a few weeks or a couple of months are commonplace, and nothing to worry about. Extended gaps—beyond a few months—may raise concerns for employers. Gaps exceeding a year tend to be viewed as much more serious and something which an employer will usually want to investigate.

Why Employment Gaps Are Concerning

Employment gaps can make employers suspicious about what candidates were up to during periods of unemployment. Failure to demonstrate what you were doing during a lengthy period of unemployment may shed doubt on a candidate’s work ethic and personal drive. Gaps might happen for various reasons, including criminal convictions, termination from a previous job, or innocent scenarios like career breaks, travel, maternity leave, or health issues.

Rather than leaving long periods unexplained on your CV, explain what you were doing during the period away from work. Employers are interested in people who fill their time effectively – so if you were volunteering or learning a new skill during the time you were out of work, tell them that on your CV. Don’t be tempted to lie about dates of employment to cover gaps or claim a job which you didn’t have as this is more than likely to be discovered.

How Gap Analysis Works

Employees will usually take the information on a candidate’s CV, or from the application form they have submitted, and will then contact their previous employers to ask them to confirm dates of employment and position held. The two sets of information will then be compared to see if there are any discrepancies.

Benefits of Performing a Gap Analysis

A gap analysis reviews a candidate’s prior experiences, performance, and qualifications. Longer gaps revealed on a CV without a good explanation can prompt questions about employability, potentially revealing conflicts with previous employers or a criminal history.

If you’re running a business, you’ll know how important it is to make sure that everyone working for you has the right to work legally in the UK. The Home Office is intensifying efforts against illegal employment, particularly in the hospitality sector, with a recent announcement that fines are to triple, and that enforcement operations are to be increased by 50% through the rest of 2024. If you are not running identity checks on your staff already, then it’s not only your bank balance which could take damage. The bad publicity and reputational damage associated with being found with illegal workers can deter customers from coming to your business, at a time when hospitality is struggling to recover from the lasting effects of the Covid pandemic.

The Home Office civil penalty for employers found to be employing illegal workers is to rise from £15,000 to as much as £45,000 per illegal worker in February 2024, and from £20,000 to £60,000 per illegal worker for repeat offenders.

Importance of Checking Right to Work

The Home Office enforcement around illegal working has been focused on the hospitality industry, as these types of casual part-time jobs are very attractive to those with little experience and without the correct paperwork. Hospitality businesses, whatever their size, should assess their compliance with right-to-work regulations now, to minimise the chances of inadvertently employing an illegal worker.

Right to Work Compliance To-Do List

• Be prepared for surprise inspections – make sure you have escalation policies and processes in place for any communications received from the Home Office or any unannounced site visits. Front-of-house staff should be trained on how to respond during an unannounced visit, to minimise impact on customers.
• Review right-to-work processes – Policies and processes for right-to-work should be robust, and thorough checks should be carried out before someone starts work. There should also be ongoing tracking and monitoring of visa expiry dates for employees with time-limited visas.
• Get your filing organised – Check your existing paperwork to make sure that the business has the correct documentation on file for all employees (both UK and non-UK nationals). This is the starting point for any Home Office inspection. If you are an accredited government sponsoring agency to bring workers into the UK, you will need more detailed paperwork so should make sure this is all filed carefully.
• Delivery Workers and Similar – Take time to think about your business’s approach to checking right-to-work evidence for those who are not direct employees, such as self-employed delivery riders or drivers. Student visa holders, for example, are not permitted to undertake self-employment.
• Training – make time for regular training for staff responsible for conducting right-to-work checks in the UK to keep their knowledge up to date.

Avoid the Bad Publicity

Employers facing penalties are publicly named on the Home Office website and such cases are routinely covered in the local press and online. Failing to keep up to date with your right to work responsibilities could easily mean the end of your business.

The level of checking which applicants for new jobs must go through has increased significantly in recent years. Increased fines and enforcement around illegal working has forced employers to run proper identity checks on both permanent and contract workers, and for other positions, employers opt for a thorough background screening check on potential hires. This screening is thought by many large employers to be essential as a way of protecting their business against the cost of hiring someone who then turns out to be unsuitable, is dismissed and then more recruitment done.

Understanding Staff Vetting

Staff vetting is all about investigating a candidate’s background and qualifications before their employment begins. This process is designed to make sure that as far as possible, employees are well-suited for their roles. It also tries to identify any factors that might mean they are unsuitable for the company or workplace. Some industries have standard background checks due to legal requirements, such as those within education, healthcare, and government sectors, where employees often handle sensitive information. Roles in those sectors might need a DBS check or for candidates to prove their academic qualifications. These requirements are usually clearly stated on a job advert.

Consequences of Poor Background Screening

Inadequate background screening, or not bothering to check up on the history of a candidate at all, can have several consequences for a business, whatever its size and industry sector. Without a system for proper background screening, employers can risk a range of consequences including:

• Inappropriate hires – if you are not fully looking into the background or qualifications of people you are hiring to work for your company, you are risking taking on people who are just not skilled enough. Similarly, if you are applying for a role which requires certain skills, be prepared to prove your qualifications.
• Fraud – internal fraud and theft can be a serious issue for many businesses and can bankrupt even larger organisations. Taking on someone without taking up references or running a basic DBS check is just asking for trouble.
• Negligence – if an employer takes on someone who then goes on to cause harm to a colleague or customer, then the employer may be found to be negligent if they haven’t run the right checks before allowing them to start work. These cases are often well-publicised and can in addition bring bad publicity for your company.

For all these reasons, employers are taking background screening more seriously than ever. It’s something to be aware of if you are applying for a position and to be prepared for. Don’t take any requests for original exam certificates or detailed references personally; it’s a level of checking that everyone will have to go through, and you are not being singled out. Employers should be clear about what checks are being done and ask for written permission for things like credit checks. Provide all the information requested as quickly as possible to clear you to start your new position promptly.

An investigative snapshot by a consumer magazine has uncovered dubious and fraudulent advertisements offering UK driving licenses for as much as £600 – without the need to take a driving test. A series of suspicious claimed to offer a “registered driving licence” without a test in “just a few working days”. Another company was found to be offering a replacement driving licence service for people who had racked up points for speeding or similar, promising to clean up your driving history. With so many fakes around, how do you spot them if you are identity checking a new employee or tenant who has produced a driving licence as evidence of who they are?

DVLA and Driving Licences

The only way to get a legal driving licence in the UK is to sit and pass a theory test, and then book and pass a practical test. The DVLA has confirmed that these ads for driving licences on social media are not connected to the DVLA and are recognised scams attempting to obtain payment or personal information. The DVLA argued that the sites will never deliver a fake driving licence and are purely there to get money from people desperate to pass their test. People learning to drive must apply for a provisional licence before starting driving lessons or taking theory and practical tests.

Spotting a Fake Driving Licence

There is lots of information online about how to spot a fake driving licence. This is mainly aimed at the hospitality sector, as driving licences are commonly used as fake ID by teenagers trying to get into pubs or clubs before they are legally old enough. Some fakes are very obvious to anyone who has seen a genuine licence, but others are trickier to spot. If you are checking the identity of someone who has given you a driving licence as part of the proof of who they are, here’s some key things to look for.

• Raised type – the surname and driving licence number on a genuine licence are printed in raised font which feel bumpy as you run your finger over them. This feature is often missing in a fake licence.
• Hologram – on the front, a genuine licence has a hologram of a steering wheel, on the reverse, the person’s face. Both of these holograms should “move” when you move the licence.
• UV light – a genuine driving licence should have features which shine under UV light. This feature shouldn’t be relied on by itself though, as some fakes are printed on this type of paper too.

Foreign Driving Licences

It can be more difficult to spot a fake driving licence issued by a foreign country, just because we are not as familiar with the genuine documents. Some of the basic checks such as putting the licence under UV light and checking that holograms move should be completed, and there is lots of information online about security features in documents issued in other countries. Always get professional advice if you are still not sure about a document you have been given.

In early 2022, the Government introduced updates to the existing Right to Work laws. The Right to Work checks were introduced in the UK around a decade ago, as a way of making sure that everyone who has a job in the UK is both in the UK legally and has the right visa for working. These identity checks are a legal requirement, and employers who are found with illegal workers who have not been checked out can be fined. Over the years the system has changed, with the most recent change being the unveiling a Digital Right to Work Scheme. This new approach allows employers to remotely authenticate the identity of individuals holding applicable documents through an Identity Service Provider (IDSP).

Options for Identity Checking

Employers now have the flexibility to choose from three options when they are carrying out Right to Work checks on people they are thinking of employing. These are:

• Digital checks for eligible applicants, mostly overseas workers with a share code, but also British and Irish passport holders.
• Return to physical document Right to Work checks or asking applicants to show their documents in person.
• Combine both checking methods.

Understanding Digital Right to Work Checks

A Digital Right to Work check enables applicants with valid proof of identity to remotely verify their identity and establish their Right to Work. For UK and Irish citizens with in-date biometric passports or passport cards, this means logging into one of the identity verification portals approved by the government and entering details such as passport numbers. The identity portal then provides a report to the employer confirming document authenticity and UK work eligibility.

For people who were born outside the UK and who have an eVisa, they can generate an official share code which can then be shared with the employer as proof of right to work.

Key Checks on Right to Work Documents

When conducting a digital Right to Work check, employers will never physically see the original document or the person uploading it. Therefore, to prevent imposter fraud, employers must ensure the document matches the employee by using biometric facial matching. This matches a selfie image taken by a webcam or similar to the applicant’s identity verification image. Employers should additionally confirm the employee’s identity when they start work, either through a face-to-face meeting or a video call.

Checking a Share Code

Overseas nationals can present a share code for Right to Work verification. Once generated, the share code is valid for 90 days. Employers can use it to log into the government’s “View and Prove” website. Once verified through the website, employers must still check the documents against the person presenting themselves for work to make sure they are the true owners of the document and of the share code. There is lots of help on the government website for both employers confused about the Right to Work system, and for workers who are trying to get through the process efficiently so that they are able to start a new job.

Right to Work checks are a legal requirement for all workers in the UK, and for tenants who are renting property. These are basic identity checks, to ensure that an individual is who they say they are and has the legal right to live and work in the UK. Identity checks usually involve showing a basic identity document such as a passport which confirms nationality, and then comparing the picture on that document to the person. These sorts of identity checks are essential for students too, and everyone starting at college and university will have to prove their identity as part of registration.

For new UK students, an identity check at the beginning of the term is an essential step in the registration process and obtain a student ID card. The primary purpose of this identity check is to verify the student’s identity and nationality. For British students, they just need to show their passport or other document such as driving licence to confirm their identity. Overseas students will require their passport with appropriate student visa attached, or biometric residence permit. If students can’t show these documents when requested, they risk not being allowed to register and missing the start of the course. Identity checks apply to all students, whether full time, part time, undergraduate or postgraduate.

Required Documents for Student Identity Check

During the identity check, students will need to present valid identity documents before getting their official student ID card. Students will need to provide one of the following documents for their identity check:

• UK passport – this must be a passport which is currently valid, rather than one which has already expired.
• UK long birth certificate – if you don’t have a passport. The long birth certificate is the version that includes the birthplace of your parents. If you don’t have a long version of your birth certificate, copies can be ordered from the registration authorities. If your parents were not born in the UK or Ireland, additional documentation, such as a passport, is required.

International Students

International students, including those from the EU, will have to provide different identity documents to verify their identity and prove their right to be in the UK and study. International students will need both their passport, and the share code which is provided by the Home Office which confirms your immigration status in the UK.

There are often delays in the immigration service, and students may be allowed into the UK before their visa and biometric residence permit is issued. Any delays in getting paperwork might mean delays in registering as a student and starting your course, so try to organise paperwork as soon as possible and reply immediately to any requests for information from the university or Home Office.

Annual Checks

As immigration status can change over time, this identity verification will be an annual process. If you have been through the process at the start of your first year at university, then you should be prepared better for the process a second time.

On February 2024, the Home Office fines for employing illegal workers, or renting property to people who are not in the UK legally are to triple. Fines for employers are to rise to a maximum of £60,000 per illegal worker, and landlord fines to £20,000 per illegal tenant. Although fines are easily avoided by running proper identity checks on employees and tenants, the increased level of checking by the Home Office should prompt everyone to make sure their checking complies with the latest legislation.

Rogue Landlords

The government has stated that their reasons for increasing the fines around employing illegal workers or leasing to illegal tenants isn’t about prosecuting people who are trying to do their level best to comply with the legislation. In a press release, they said their main aim is to target the small number of rogue landlords and dodgy employers who turn a blind eye to immigration law and simply don’t care about who they employ. However, when a Home Office inspector arrived at your business or rented property, they don’t know which category you fall into.

Checking Right to Work and Right to Rent

Making sure you are complying with the law is not complicated. The law requires that you firstly check the documents of people working for you or renting property from you and have a way of recording what you have seen and when. The key document you need to determine Right to Work or Rent is a passport. If someone has a British passport this makes things very straightforward as it guarantees they have the right to live and work in the UK.

If someone has a passport issued by another country, then things get a little more complicated. Their right to work or rent property will depend on their immigration status in the UK, and what sort of visa they have. The immigration system is complex, with many different visas issued for work or study, and someone’s status can also change over time. The Home Office runs helplines for landlords or employers who are unsure about how to check someone’s status. It is always better to call for advice rather than to assume someone is legally in the UK to be later be hit by a fine.

Filing and Review

The other part of the law requires employers and landlords or their agents to keep records of the checks they have done. This involves recording the date the checks were done and listing the documents which were seen. The law doesn’t specify how you keep your records, so every business and landlord are free to come up with whatever system works. It is also important to keep in mind that the status of workers and tenants may change over time – student visas come to an end, a work visa expires and so on. One of the main reasons for fines is that checks are not repeated regularly enough, and a landlord or business is fined for someone who was legal in the past, but no longer meets that requirement.

One of the latest management buzzwords is “onboarding”, a term which is cropping up in more and more job adverts. If you’re applying for a new position and have heard that the company will be onboarding new workers, what exactly should you expect from that process? Employee onboarding is a term which describes everything a company does to introduce newly hired workers to an organisation. The idea is to introduce workers to their roles, positions within the team and organisation, or to give insights into the company culture. Studies have shown that an effective onboarding process brings long-term benefits for businesses, such as greater productivity, and better employee retention.

The onboarding process usually takes place after you have actually started work but can also be used to describe the pre-employment checks into references or identity verification which companies do before employment starts.

Evolution of Onboarding in Recent Years

Before 2020, onboarding usually involved new employees physically travelling into the office. They would then have face-to-face introductions, social gatherings, and do any compulsory training sessions. During the pandemic, and to some extent even after restrictions had lifted, onboarding moved online. Nowadays, most companies do a mixture of both methods with in-person introductions to other members of their immediate team, and online training or meetings with other people in different locations.

Impact on Staff Training of Onboarding

Digital training became essential during the pandemic, as nobody was allowed into the office to complete group training sessions in person. As flexible and hybrid working becomes the norm, most companies are still doing a mix of face-to-face training in groups, e-learning and online conference calls to train their new employees. Learning online can be difficult for many workers, and this has meant that many employers are breaking down their onboarding training into smaller, manageable chunks.

Best Practice for Onboarding

There has been lots of advice and research into the best ways of introducing an employee to their new employer and if you’re about to undergo this sort of onboarding process with a new employer, here are some of the things you might expect to encounter:

• Onboarding Buddies – many companies are allocating each new starter a current employee as a “buddy”, who is there to act as a point of contact to answer any questions which the new starter might have about their role, or the company.
• Informal communication – it has also been shown that the social side of joining a new company is as important as the work training. Many companies offer virtual coffee mornings, chatrooms, or social media sites to help their workers get to know each other, something which is particularly important when people are working remotely.
• Regular check-ups – people working remotely can feel isolated, especially when joining a large organisation. Most companies will make a point of setting up regular one to one meetings between new starters and their managers, to give them a chance to raise any concerns or just to discuss how things are going.

Since 2014 in England, landlords and lettings agents have had the legal responsibility to carry out detailed checks on tenants before a tenancy agreement starts. These identity checks are aimed at stopping individuals without lawful immigration status from being able to rent property from a private landlord and is known as Right to Rent checks. If a landlord or letting agency business doesn’t comply with the laws and is later found to be renting property without the right to be in the UK legally, they ae liable for fines.

Increased Non-Compliance Fines

The government has recently announced that fines for landlords found to be renting to people who are in the UK illegally are to increase dramatically in 2024. Before the changes come into effect, the fines for renting to illegal immigrants were £80 for someone living as a lodger in your property, and £1000 for a tenant in a rented flat or house. Under new legislation these will rise to £5000 for a lodger and £10,000 for an occupying tenant. For repeat offenders are even higher, with sums of up to £30,000 for each illegal tenant found in a property.

More Stringent Checks

With such a dramatic increase in fines, it’s perhaps no surprise that landlords and letting agents are starting to tighten up their processes when it comes to checking up on the people who want to work for them. The methods which landlords can use to check you out are not changing, it’s just that they are applying the checks more rigorously, irrespective of whether you have lived in the UK your whole life or have rented property from them before. These increased checks apply to absolutely everyone, so if you experience stricter checks than you are used to, don’t take it personally.

The three main methods which landlords can use to check out their prospective tenants are:

• Manual Right to Rent Checks – this is the traditional way of checking up on tenants or prospective workers. Tenants will be asked to attend the office in person to show their passports or other identity documents to prove who they are and that they have the legal right to live in the UK.
• Digital Right to Rent Checks – these can only be done for UK or Irish citizens and involve verifying someone’s identity using the government online portals. The advantage of these checks is that they are quicker than manual checks, and don’t involve the tenant having to come into the office.
• Home Office online Right to Rent check these are only suitable for non-British and non-Irish citizens who have a government eVisa as proof of their immigration status.

Whatever category you fall into, be prepared for a higher level of checking if you are thinking of renting property in 2024. Checks are nothing to be scared of, but you will be asked to show your passport, or other identity documents to help the landlords avoid some hefty fines. As the government continues to try to make life difficult for people in the UK illegally, expect further changes in the laws in the future.

CV fraud is a growing concern among recruiters, and a recent survey shows they have good reason to be concerned. One in five people, or twenty percent, either admit to lying themselves on their CV, or know someone who has lied about their qualifications on their CV in the past year. More shocking for employers, 40% of employees who suspect a colleague of CV fraud choose not to report it to HR, even when they have the option to do so anonymously. It also appears that lying on your CV is becoming more prevalent within younger age groups, with 38% of 16-24s admitting to either lying on their CV or knowing someone who has, compared with 30% in the 25-30 group. If you are thinking of applying for a job, or hiring a new employee for your business, should you be prepared for CV fact checking along with identity checking and chasing up references?

Why Commit CV Fraud?

In today’s competitive job market, it’s increasingly common for recruiters to demand degree-level qualifications, irrespective of the position. This can be seen by people who didn’t go to university as putting them at a disadvantage. The internet has made it very easy to fake qualifications and buy fraudulent certificates, which might at first glance appear entirely genuine. Employers risk taking on someone who is just not qualified for the role, and other genuine applicants face missing out.

CV Fraud and the Law

Lying on a CV is legally a grey area but can result in severe consequences if uncovered. There is a crime called “fraud by false misinterpretation,” which, in some cases, can carry a maximum jail sentence of 10 years. Writing a fake CV or stating qualifications which you don’t have isn’t a crime in itself, but getting a job on the back of your faked degree or A-levels might be.

Employers have the right to sack employees found to have lied on their CVs under gross misconduct rules. In certain sectors, such as healthcare and financial services, there may also be further action taken by the police or other professional bodies.

Identifying CV Fraud

Spotting CV fraud can be difficult, which is why many employers have started to use third-party screening companies to do it for them. CV checking involves spotting inconsistent or vague information, lack of detail, exaggerated achievements, employment history gaps, unverifiable claims, discrepancies between the CV and information given on the application form and other discrepancies. Calling or emailing universities or former stated employers often quickly uncovers the deception.

Preventing CV Fraud

As CV fraud is so common, job seekers should be prepared for a high level of scrutiny over their CV and application form. The most important piece of advice is the most straightforward – don’t be tempted to tell fibs or exaggerate on your CV.

Employers have started checking educational and professional qualifications as a matter of course for many employees and will not take any information at face value. For many employees, this can mean a longer than usual wait between getting a job offer and actually starting work.