Month: March 2010

Categories
Background Checks

Background Checks and the Quality of Research

As a background checking service, we like to extol the virtues of background checks in weeding out prospective problems in the workplace.   We write often about checking out criminal records, sexual offenses, criminal theft, and other indicators that someone may not be your ideal candidate.

But we always add that the background check is as good as the agency conducting the searches.   Shoddy research, like other examples of shoddy workmanship, will produce sometimes sad and disturbing results.   In this case as the Associated Press reports, an Ohio gunman further defined violence in the workplace by shooting two of his supervisors.  The gunman complained he was being treated unfairly.

The gunman had lied on on his application, claiming he had no past criminal records.  In fact, he had a past criminal record for receiving stolen property.  For that he did five years in prison.

Largely, most background checking services and their researchers do a decent job.   Some missing records are due to errors on the part of counties or the agencies that report criminal records.   but many are on the part of the researchers.   Simply put, sometimes they miss searches.  Sometimes they fail to read the entire record or to search for probable permutations of the name.  Or to report back that they have name only matches, should they send them anyway or just discard those criminal records that fail to provide other identifiers.

The idea is to be thorough.  The idea is to think.  Sometimes there will be mistakes.  But often the mistakes are avoidable when the background checking agency makes it clear to its researchers how to search and what to pull if there is any doubt that the employment candidate has criminal records.  And, if the employer suspects the job applicant may have criminal records, it is incumbent upon the background checking service to assure the researcher is being thorough, is checking every possibility.

It will never fully eliminate workplace violence, but it will help reduce it by filtering out those who may cause harm to fellow employees and others around them.

Check them out before you hire.

Categories
Background Checks

JPL Dispute Over Background Checks Goes to Court

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments about the post 9/11security checks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California.   According to the article in the article on the website for KUOR Public Radio, in California, the case involves the issue of recurring background checks at this world famous facility.

Employees who had background checks conducted on them when they were first employment candidates at the JPL, were after September 11, 2001 required to undergo additional and more contemporary background checks. Twenty-Eight scientists refused and they were facing dismissal.  The California Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals weighed in and called the new order for background checks a “grand inquisition.”   So that was the end of the additional background checks.

Until now.  Or, rather, the summer when the Supreme Court will hear the case.   It should be interesting as on one hand some of the legal issues revolve around doing recurring background checks.  However, the JPL wanted to add additional background searches to the preemployment screening program.  Background searches the scientists didn’t undergo when they first came on board.   Some of the new background checks including employee finances, emotional stability, and drug and alcohol use.

Like I said, an interesting case.

Categories
Background Checks

Follow Up On Credit Background Checks

There is an ongoing controversy in several states about whether or not employers should run credit reports s part of the background checks they use in their preemployment screening programs.   I have posted some thoughts on this subject in a recent blog,  Controversy Over Credit Reports as Background Checks.

Some critics of the credit report as a background check contest that this is a draconian practice, as it inhibits many skilled and otherwise qualified employment candidates from finding jobs.  They contest that in this economic downturn where the job market is tight as it is, it is one more obstacle to finding employment they will often fail to hurdle.  They claim that job applicants are being penalized unnecessarily for personal misfortune in a  bad economy.     Some contest the practice of conducting practices is illegal, while others claim there is no evidence that discloses those with poor credit are a greater risk to embezzle or to commit some other form of office theft.

These are all valid points.   As one of my own recent critics contested, I am obviously advocating credit reports because Corra Group is just in it for the money.  Well, yes, but more significantly, we are determined to furnish the services requested from current and future clients.  These are employers.  Many have been in business for quite some time.  There is really no need to “sell,” them them employment credit reports as the great majority make the request of their own volition.   We will supply them with employment credit reports.

I admit there are no studies performed on the relation between credit reports and avoiding employee theft.   The evidence is empirical, meaning this is what employers have been telling us and other background searching agencies for quite some time.   This has been their standard practice for decades in some places.   Again,  we don’t need to sell this to them,  although we admittedly promote all of our products and services.   We are not shy about our marketing efforts or what we provide.

All this being said, I wanted to pass on to all potential employers and critics of this process comments that have arise unprompted from  two clients, recently.   Both claimed they have hired people, thinking they were good candidates.  Neither client ran credit reports as part of their preemployment screening.   Both regretted that choice.  One cited potential theft, or more to the point, actual theft on the part of one employee with substance abuse habits and lousy credit.  He was to discover this later.  Both clients cited the time and effort they had to spend answering phone calls form creditors for their bad credit employees.  They complained of the paperwork involved with dealing with wage garnishments and responded to letter from creditors.   Took up their time, cost them manpower and extra money. They were not happy.

So no matter which way you come down on the argument about employment credit reports, if you believe the other side lacks valid points then you are sadly mistaken.   As an job candidate, you may feel slighted for being penalized for having bad credit.   As an employer, you may well believe you are in your rights to conduct credit checks on all potential hires.

Like most things in life, we would like to see it in simple terms.  It’s not.   And that is the only thing that is clear about the matter.

Categories
Background Checks

When Unemployment Slips You a Mickey…Mouse

It’s a tough job market and competition for what few jobs there are is fierce.   According to the Los Angeles Times, the different amusement parks around Southern California have had record turnouts at their job fairs.    This would  include such iconic amusement destinations as the Disney parks, Six Flags, and Universal Studios.

Thousand of job applicants have shown up in search of employment.  Usually these are students off for the summer or who have recently graduated and need a gig to tide them over.   But now the list of job applicants includes white collar workers, IT people,  construction guys.   With unemployment in California reaching more than 16% people need work.  And work is hard to come by in this rotten economy.

Since we are a nation where industry determines a job candidate’s qualities and eligibility for his position by judging his career track, one has to wonder what a job at, say, Disneyland would do.  Not an executive position, but a kid’s job.  How does that look on your background checks and preemployment screening report when the employment verification verifies that you spent a few months working as Minnie Mouse?   At a time when you can’t account for a couple of months of downtime it would have to be disturbing for the recruiter to gaze upon an executive level resume and see that you were Dopey  in the fireworks pageant.

It seems that we don’t make allowance for time off or time spent exploring other career opportunities, yet alone trying to survive when we are out of work.   There are times when putting food on the table, supplementing savings so your money doesn’t run out is more important than having a consistent career track.  Especially when that alleged career track has been abrogated by a nearly unprecedented economic downtown, and not only a shortage of job but a cycle when certain formerly high paying jobs are no longer relevant.  Or the industry has either obsolete or the remaining jobs have been relegated to Timbuktu.