You might be using constants (here named KNOWN and UNKNOWN). If so, where they are mentioned in your code, they would be unquoted (KNOWN and not "KNOWN"). Here is an example using named constants.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use constant {KNOWN => 1, UNKNOWN => 0};

my $test;
$test -> {'RecordType'} = UNKNOWN;

#case 1
if($test ->{'RecordType'}){ # if $tset->{'RecordType'} == any 'true' v
+alue, i.e 1
    print "case1 is known\n";
}
else {
    print "case1 is unknown\n"; 
}

#case 2
if($test ->{'RecordType'} == KNOWN){ # if $tset->{'RecordType'} == 1
    print "case2 is known\n";
}
else {
    print "case2 is unknown\n";
}
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The run produces this output:

case1 is unknown
case2 is unknown
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On another point, $test is not a hash but is used as a hash reference. So, it is used as $test->{RecordType} and not $test{RecordType}

Constants are usually used to make code more clear (names instead of numbers).

Constants are explained here.