Post
by kenfrapin » Thu Oct 07, 2010 11:23 am
For so called background checks - its more about you as a person. All checks are done by external agencies and this will be to check if you have criminal convictions, your legal status, any bankruptcy declarations and those sorts - this is standard and they do it just because it is a legal requirement within the company
Reference checks is not part of background checks - they can only validate the references you provide so just dont provide your previous employer. A practical thing to do, which many people really follow, is to give details of your any colleague of yours who you are close to in your previous contract to validate your work. Do this ONLY if you have used your previous contract experience in your CV because companies will expect references from most recent jobs you completed.
Else, just avoid your previous contract references and give the one before and you should be fine.
Finally - you made a grave mistake of comparing Indian and UK IT Markets - they are worlds apart and the processes completely different. Everyone here applies to a MILLION job adverts before getting calls, I mean average profiles like ours - unless you have an MBA or Masters from a Top Uni or have worked in some of the BEST companies, you will never get picked for a call easily.
Without pointing a finger at you, please remember that the QUALITY of your CV plays a big factor in getting shortlisted. As 99% of the jobs are via recruitment consultants, most CVs just get rejected because of the CV being poor, key words not matching the job profile, irrelevant experience or insufficient experience.
Finally - the Indian IT market is at its peak so you get picked for several interviews in one month while the UK market is still close to its bottom and you will be lucky even if you manage to get 5 F2F interviews in 1 year!!!!
All the best
KP