Category Archives: Employment Screening

Is salary history part of your screening process

Posted on by
Reply

Do you as an employer ask for salary history as part of your hiring process? If so, do you use that information to make your decision on whether or not to hire someone? It seems like such a small detail, but could bring problems for an employer depending on how such information is gathered and used.

Asking for salary history is well within an employer’s legal rights, and most job applicants are happy to provide such information. If you are using a third party employment screening service to gather such information, however, you must have written pre-approval by the applicant. And if the figures you find come into play when deciding not to hire that person, you are required to let them know, as according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act they have a legal right to explain or correct any errors or information you’ve found.

While a job applicant is not required to share salary history, some employers have found that asking for it ends up serving as one way to judge character, because lying about one’s salary history is an easy one to catch.

Follow VerifyProtect.com on Twitter!

Periodic background checks a good follow-up to pre-employment screening

Posted on by
Reply

Many employers have a “one and done” attitude about background checks for employees. They conduct what they deem to be a thorough pre-employment screening before someone is hired, and that’s it. There’s never any follow-up background screening, or random drug testing, or periodic driver’s license check.

Is that the safest way to run a business? While it’s a great business practice to conduct pre-employment screening, the wise business owner understands that people change, circumstances change and unless you’re periodically checking into things, your staff might have changed – and not for the better.

Employers should follow up their wise hiring practices by implementing safeguards against current employees who could be breaking the law. The most obvious step is to institute a Drug and Alcohol policy that includes random periodic drug testing, if you don’t have one already. And it’s not a bad idea to conduct periodic background checks for current employees and implement pre-hire and periodic screening for temporary or contingent workers as well .

 

Follow VerifyProtect.com on Twitter!

www.VerifyProtect.com

States propose anti-social media background check laws

Posted on by
Reply

Are you requiring job applicants to fork over their social media website login information as part of your company’s pre-employment screening process? While checking social media sites is becoming more and more popular among employers as yet another avenue for finding out all they can about a prospective employee, some state lawmakers and organizations are already gearing up to fight this practice, which they say is an invasion of privacy.

This past week Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) was added to the handful of state representatives across the country who are proposing laws to make this practice illegal. Blumenthal says that his bill, once finished, will include some exceptions, like for federal and local law enforcement agencies, and government agencies that handle national security issues. He did indicate that private companies that receive government contracts would be regulated under the legislation.  

A similar bill in Illinois is backed by the ACLU. Such a law, if it passes, would make it just as illegal for an employer to ask for an applicant’s Facebook password as it is illegal for an employer to ask a woman if she plans to have children.

As we’ve advised before, employers who wish to conduct social media background checks – and the numbers are growing – should tread carefully, so as not to open themselves up to discrimination claims or risk using false information when weighing their hiring decisions.

 

Follow VerifyProtect.com on Twitter!

www.VerifyProtect.com

Tips for employers on hiring smart

Posted on by
Reply

It’s no secret that the smartest employers hire professional employment screening services to handle the background checks of its would-be hires and employees. But wise employers understand that merely signing a contract with a background check company doesn’t ensure that your business will only hire the very best applicants for every position. An employer needs to remain attentive and insightful during the hiring process. Don’t check out just because you’ve paid someone to check them out.

Here are a few things every employer should do to stay present in the hiring game and be sure your company is making the best decisions for its future:

1. Weed through the applicants before beginning background checks. It’s a costly and wasteful move to have every single applicant undergo a background check, so don’t use that as your first step toward finding quality applicants. First study their resumés, conduct phone interviews and check references. Then you can hand-pick a select few top applicants to undergo the background check process.

2. Be smart about what to check. A qualified employment screening service should be able to tailor the type of background check to the type of job you’re trying to fill. For example, not every applicant for every job needs to undergo a credit check.

3. Check the background of the company you’re hired to complete your background checks. There are a ton of businesses out there that purport to be thorough, fast employment screening services. But many of them are not reputable, and anything but thorough. Check the credentials of the employment screening service you’re thinking of hiring. The last thing you want to do is sign on with a scammer.

4. Know the law. Laws and regulations regarding discrimination and privacy concerns in background checks vary from state to state, so do some research into what is the acceptable protocol where your business is located.

Follow VerifyProtect.com on Twitter!

Which type of employer are you?

Posted on by
Reply

When it comes to their beliefs on pre-employment screening, there are four types of employers.

1. The Believers: These guys are on board with the pre-employment screening process. They believe in it as an investment in the safety of their employees, their customers and their business, and they hire the very best, most reputable employment screening service to oversee every background check, every time.

2. The Room for Improvements: They may be recently on board the pre-employment screening bandwagon, and though they’ve got some processes firmly in place, they are looking for ways to improve their background check system and tighten their ship.

3. The Skeptics: Those who don’t believe background checks are necessary but they go through the motions because either their industry demands it or their customers expect it. These folks typically just do the bare minimum that is required of them.

4. The Handshakes: Those who subscribe to the old business belief that people should be taken at their word with a firm handshake. They think they are a good judge of character and don’t need to rely on criminal records and legal documents to back up their instincts about a prospective employee. Most of these folks don’t have any formal pre-employment screening process in place.

Which type of employer are you? Could your way of thinking, and your pre-employment screening process, use an overhaul?

Follow VerifyProtect.com on Twitter!

Washington an example of the importance of federal background checks for home care workers

Posted on by
Reply

If any employer is still wondering whether background checks work to protect people, consider Initiative 1029 in Washington state. Back in 2008, voters overwhelmingly passed Initiative 1029, which required federal background checks and increased basic training for the people who care for seriously ill seniors and people with disabilities. The initiative received more “yes” votes than any other initiative in the state’s history. And yet, the reforms were never implemented.

In the three years legislators have dragged their feet on it, the number of crimes against seniors and the gravely ill at the hands of their caregivers has continued to rise. Residential Care Services, which investigates allegations against employees or volunteers of long-term care facilities, reported a more than 15 percent increase in citations of neglect and abuse in adult family homes, to more than 20,000, in 2010. Yet right now the state only requires a limited background check for home care workers, not an exhaustive search into their criminal records in other states.

It’s common sense, not just good business, to prevent anyone off the street to care for those who can’t defend themselves. No matter what state your business is in, you should be ensuring the safety of your customers and employees by using employment screening services that include a federal background check. It’s as simple as that.

Follow VerifyProtect.com on Twitter!

Employment screening services tackle criminal record searches state by state, county by county

Posted on by
Reply

It would be super-convenient if there was some magical nationwide database that held every criminal record of every person ever arrested or convicted of a crime. Unfortunately, that database does not exist. While there are private databases that hold millions of records from all 50 states, none claim to have all records from all states. And while many states have adequate databases of the crimes committed by residents of their states, they do not include crimes committed by current state residents while they lived in other states.

Using these private databases can be a good back-up measure, a resource to use to double-check the background information gleaned from other sources. But they shouldn’t be considered an exhaustive search.

The smartest thing for an employer to do is to hire a professional employment screening service that can attack the background check process thoroughly and systematically. Gathering previous addresses and former names used by the applicant in the last 10 years is a good first step, that way criminal records can be found in all states, counties and towns where the applicant has resided in the last decade.

Follow VerifyProtect.com on Twitter!

A professional pre-employment screening service will take care of such details for you, and will therefore give you the most thorough and trustworthy results.

Use Employment Screening Reports to Search for Patterns of Behavior

Posted on by
Reply

When conducting a background check, it’s easy for an employer to get caught up in every line item of the report. While there’s a wealth of knowledge that can be gathered and reported on a prospective employee, through credit reports, criminal background checks, driving records and more, none of that is ultimately helpful to an employer unless he or she understands how to read an employment screening report.

The key to making wise decisions on prospective employees is to look for patterns of behavior, not necessarily single infractions or one-time issues. For example, if someone has one speeding ticket, it’s not cause for alarm. But if an applicant has 15 unpaid parking tickets, that should raise a red flag. Even though parking tickets are in no way a serious offense, the sheer number of them point to a pattern of behavior for this person that could signal they are careless, disrespectful of rules, or perhaps just generally disorganized. None of those things are what you’d hope or expect your next manager to be.

So when you get that report, go line by line but more importantly, refocus to the bigger picture, using the clues given in the report to piece together the applicant’s personality, work ethic and responsibility level.

Follow VerifyProtect.com on Twitter!

Is That Jobseeker’s Previous Employer Real or Fake?

Posted on by
Reply

One of the most important tools an employer uses as part of the pre-employment screening process is to speak to an applicant’s former employer, to check professional references and find out from former bosses and colleagues whether the applicant has the experience, knowledge, leadership skills and other assets listed on their resumé.

Now there’s at least one company sabotaging this effort by offering fake job references, complete with job titles, salary details, and start and end dates. Jobseekers pay a fee and a monthly subscription to get a complete stranger to pose as a previous employer and offer glowing reviews of the applicant’s performance and skills.

The fees range, with more expensive plans promising three different “references” to act as a phony human resources manager, a fake immediate supervisor, and a phony secondary supervisor. Those giving the fake references also are paid subscribers to the service.

The job market is tough for many industries right now, but using deceitful means to land a job hurts both the employee and the employer in the end. The best way to wade through the increasingly murky waters of employee verification is to hire a reputable employment screening service trained to weed out the scammers, con artists and thiefs and find those deserving of a job at your place of business.

Follow VerifyProtect.com on Twitter!

Don’t Let Poor Credit Be the Sole Factor For Determining Employability

Posted on by
Reply

Checking a job applicant’s credit score is among the many ways employers are checking up on prospective employees to get a better idea of their personal history and how responsible they are. Unfortunately, in today’s tough economic recession there are plenty of job applicants out there who are both fiscally responsible and suffering from the fallout of job loss, home foreclosure and mounting debt as families try to stay afloat financially with less money coming in.

That’s why it’s important for those employers who are doing a credit check on their job applicants’ to keep a few things in mind:

1. Does the job the person is applying for deal with company finances, personal information or include a security clearance? Consider whether the job in question would be performed to the same level of professionalism by someone with less than stellar credit.

2. Pay close attention to the rest of the application and the other results from a pre-employment screening that is performed on the job applicant. Nobody likes to be judged on just one aspect of his life, and no job applicant should be judged based solely on a number. Instead let your instinct, careful review of all documents, and the interview guide you.

3. Be aware of the law. It is unlawful to deny someone a job based solely on his or her credit score.

4. If you’re on the fence, be honest about your qualms. Talk to the applicant a little more, and see whether the details and recent life history they give lines up with what you found in your background check.

Follow VerifyProtect.com on Twitter!