Rafael Melinon
DGa Trade and Marketing of VerifDiploma
VerifDiploma is a diploma verification solution that helps fight fraud. Are you seeing an increase of fraudulent practices among young graduates?
Rafael Melinon : Verifdiploma detected 7% of fake diplomas in 2021. Half of the fraudsters have never been registered in the institution, the other half have followed the training but have not graduated after the jury. The phenomenon affects all candidate profiles (young graduates and experienced), all sectors of activity (banking, finance, insurance, telecommunications, IT, public institutions) as well as all levels (Baccalaureate, Bachelor’s, Master’s, Doctorate). Despite a slight increase in 2021, the percentage of false diplomas has remained stable over the last five years.
Fraud can range from a simple false line on a CV to a copy of a diploma modified on Photoshop to the purchase of a fake diploma on the Internet. Several sites offer to send a real diploma to your mailbox within 24 hours for a few dozen euros.
There is an even more incredible phenomenon, that of fake universities. These universities do not physically exist and do not provide any education. They just have a very design website and publish beautiful diplomas that you can check online on their website or with a fictitious school service.
There are also real blockchains on which fake diplomas are registered!
What are the advantages for a university to work with VerifDiploma?
Rafael M. : When Emmanuel CHOMARAT created Verifdiploma in 2001, the first idea was to create a database of university graduates in partnership with higher education institutions (universities, business schools, engineering schools, and school boards) to enable recruiters to check the diplomas of job applicants and to understand the educational content of the training courses through detailed description sheets. Today, the database contains 19 million graduates.
At the beginning of the adventure, very few French companies checked diplomas.
Over the past 5 years, the situation in France has evolved positively and more and more companies, higher education institutions and institutions are systematically verifying diplomas to secure their recruitment.
Internationally, this practice has been common for more than 10 years. The verifications are carried out by specialized service providers called “background screeners”. These companies generate a very large number of diploma verifications worldwide.
To share a few figures with you, we performed 120,000 diploma verifications in 2020 and we are closing the year 2021 with a 40% increase. This growth is also driven by international development. Verifdiploma is recognized as a trusted third party by background screeners who entrust us with a large number of verifications.
This phenomenon will increase over the next few years, supported by the internationalization and diversity of career paths, the abundance of information on social networks, and the need for recruiters to qualify information and clarify candidates’ career paths with official sources.
In addition, the pedagogy and reputation of French universities are internationally recognized. A recent study by the firm Emerging revealed that French universities and grandes écoles rank second in the annual global university employability rankings.
As a result, the number of requests from French and international companies for verification of diplomas from university education departments has increased considerably. The processing of these requests is very time-consuming and must be carried out quickly so as not to prejudice the recruitment of the graduate. The university is responsible for the response and must ensure that the entire process complies with the CNIL and RGPD legal framework.
In this context, it is essential for institutions to do everything possible to effectively manage this growing flow of verification requests and to equip themselves with a tool that enables them to meet these challenges.
Verifdiploma provides universities with the Verifcenter platform, which allows them to manage diploma verification requests from French and international recruiters in compliance with the CNIL and the RGPD.
What are the challenges for Verifdiploma in 2022?
Rafael M. : After a year of strong growth in 2021, Verifdiploma wants to accelerate its development in France and internationally.
The 2022 strategy is based on four axes:
- Strengthen our partnerships with universities and ministries in EMEA, China, India, USA and Latin America
- Redesign the Verifcenter platform with new features to improve the user experience for universities and recruiters
- Acceleration of the development of our dematerialization and blockchain security solution: DocCenter
- Talent recruitment: to meet these challenges, Verifdiploma plans to expand its teams with IT, customer relations and marketing profiles
