I was told "now is the time to adjust the dates on your resume"
I accepted an IT job offer yesterday, 4 months after I was first contacted about it. I'm dealing with a contract agency where all the recruiters are from India, and frankly they are difficult to understand.
So when the recruiter called me to extend the offer, the first thing he did was to lower the hourly rate by $2 an hour. Its a good rate so I accepted it, but I have to say that I've never had a company do this after I signed the initial paperwork.
He told me that there would be background checks: drug screening, criminal history, employment history, and education history. No problem. Then I was told "now is the time to adjust the dates on your resume". I said what do you mean? All the dates on my resume are accurate. I guess there's an assumption that everyone lies on their resume, so apparently its not something that would screen you out of getting the job.
Strange new world. 20 years ago I was not contacted by any Indian recruiters. I usually met local recruiters face-to-face and kept in touch with them for years. I tried to favor local companies. Now its just the opposite. Almost all of the recruiters are from India, although they may have a US office. Its all very impersonal.
The local agencies are barely visible. I guess its all about money.
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I don't deal at all with folks that I have too much trouble overcoming an accent. In my case the worst were a German guy and a, I think, a French-Canadian. I had 2 years of German and my professor for linear algebra and FORTRAN was from India.
I generally deal with the same recruiters that I have know for years. The shops I deal with are Adecco/Entegee, Carlton, Zoom Technical, Oxford and sometimes triple crown and Advanced Tech.
I can explain some of the business but I have to run an errand right now. TTFN 
...is to confirm within 30 days any dates you give on your resume. For the government (DoE or DoD) their investigation looks for any unexplained employment gaps.
I would be a bit concerned about a shop that says that as they may be a bit used to dealing with folks that "enhance" their experience. It's not deal breaker but I would be very concerned if at some point such a shop misses a paycheck. For the most part I only deal with folks I know very well on a corp-corp or 1099 basis. For w-2 payroll most shops look for at least a 35% markup to cover things like workman's comp, payroll taxes, insurance, payroll finance costs and in-house expenses. I have worked for shops with markups in the 60% range. It's a benefit to know your markup.
I have had some questionable things happen but most folks are basically honest. Mostly a recruiter will know the client billing range and shop markup ahead. My SOP is that if the money works for me, I take the job.
I look at CE Weekly's site for hunting now and then.
Feel free to reply or DUmail. Good luck.
