EmployeeScreenIQ Blog

I hate to blatantly copy a post I’ve made elsewhere, but I’m rather impressed with myself (or at least the topic) on this one I recently posted on Xtra Cheezhead. See below.

Okay, so you’ve conducted a background check on a prospective employee and decide that they meet your standards. You extend an offer and that person accepts the job and becomes a valuable member of your team. Now that the person has been hired, most companies would not be inclined to consider further background checks. Well the times, they are a-changing.

While the concept of follow up background checks has been around for a long time and employed by security conscious organizations, you are seeing this emerging trend creep into the consciousness of your average business. It even has a shiny new name that many are using: “Infinity Screening”. I’m a big advocate of this practice because it allows you to evaluate your current employees for adverse information throughout their employment. An easy example is conducting annual Motor Vehicle Record check on those that drive company cars.

Please click on the link below to view the rest of this post:
http://www.cheezhead.com/xtra/2007/09/07/post-employment-screening/

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Major League Baseball Umpires should take a notice of their Minor League counterpart’s recent negotiation concerning background checks. It is being reported in the Sporting News that the Minor League Umpires Union has agreed to allow background checks now that it clearly understands the parameters and scope of information being sought and how that information is being analyzed.

This is exactly how this should have played out with Major League Umpires. Instead, it appears that they are looking to use this issue as a bargaining chip. What could be more important than implementing a process that can help to ensure the integrity of the umpires and the game itself? Once the minor league umps understood how the process would work, they realized the need to submit to such checks. Thus far, the Major League umps have not relented.

How does this lesson apply to your average organizations? One, it is important to define the parameters of your screening program and to let your applicants/employees know what you are screening for and how the checks are being used. To a lesser extent, one can learn how the unions (in Major League Baseball’s case) can take a no-brainer idea and make it an issue.

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Just because you are local, doesn’t mean your employment screening firm must be.  While local is always nice in terms of familiarity is concerned, capabilities are far more important.  Just because your local screening firm might screen a lot of people in your particular area, doesn’t mean they have the expertise, capacity or capability to conduct background checks for your applicant’s that may live or have lived outside of your area. 

One of the best practices in conducting an effective screening program is to check every county where you applicant has resided, worked or gone to school and every name they have used over the past seven years.  So, it is imperative to identify and select a provider who can cover the entire country.  It is also important to select a provider who has a basic sense of the federal, state and local laws that govern the use of background checks.  In most cases, the Fair Credit Reporting Act will pre-empt state of local laws, but not always.  So conducting a check in California for instance is completely different than conducting a check in Ohio.

In addition to client references, you might ask the following questions of a potential provider that seek to highlight experience in this regard:

• Do you have a national client base?
• Do you have national coverage? (duh?, sorry for the obvious one but you never know)
• If you do have national coverage, do you regularly cover all areas of the country?
• Please highlight some of the differences or challenges you run into in different areas or regions of the country (beware of the provider that tells you none).

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Many companies utilize credit checks as part of their pre-employment screening programs.  While credit checks are often confusing, they can shed light on an applicant’s personal responsibility.  It is important for employers to bear in mind the following when contemplating this type of search.  First the basics, you must have a signed authorization from the applicant before you can check their credit.  Second, you want to make sure that credit is not the only thing that you look at to determine an applicant’s suitability for employment.  Other valuable pieces of a background check can include a criminal record search, employment verifications, education verifications, etc.  Next, you want to make sure that you evaluate how poor credit might affect your candidate’s ability to work in the position they seek.  Credit checks are great for executive level applicants, those in the financial sector or those and, or those with access to large amounts of money.  For others, the extension might not be so obvious. 

Next is understanding the different between an Employment Credit Report and a Consumer Credit Report.  There are many differences that require far greater explanation, but the for the purposes of this discussion let’s point out a couple of the highlights.  A Consumer Credit report contains a credit score (which cannot be used as part of the hiring decision) and account numbers (which an employer shouldn’t need to make a hiring decision).  Running them also counts against the applicant’s credit score, unlike the Employment Credit Report.  For simplification purposes, this makes the Employment Credit Report the preferable of the two. 

Lastly, there are three primary credit bureaus in the US.  They are Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.  Information can vary from bureau to bureau, but as far as determining the best, all three have their strengths and weaknesses.

Now comes the hard part.  Making employment decisions based on the results of a credit report.  And that my friends is something that can and should be dealt with on a unique employer by employer basis.

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Okay, so you’ve made a smart decision and decided to integrate the use of background checks into your hiring process.  The question now is "at what point in the hiring process to I use this insightful tool"?  The answer is different for every organization.  For some organizations, the successful completion of a background check is the most influential part of the hiring decision, therefore the check is conducted at the beginning of the process.  For others, it is used as a helpful tool to choose between equally qualified candidates and thus conducted somewhere between the first interview and the actual job offer.  Some organizations will conduct it post offer and make the offer contingent upon the successful completion of the check.  And yet others, will also make the offer contingent upon the successful completion of the check, but put them on the job before executing.

All of the aforementioned options are permissible and when used effectively, greatly benefit the employer.  There are ramifications for each though.  For instance, if the check is conducted at the onset of the hiring process, the organization is probably screening many more candidates than it will actually hire.  The benefit is that rather than going completely through with the whole process, candidates can either move on or be eliminated right away.  On the other end of the spectrum, those who wait until someone is on the job run the risk of employing and potentially having to terminate a candidate after they have made it through the entire process.  The benefit of waiting is that they can breeze through the hiring process and get candidates on the job quickly.

At the end of the day, you have to make the best decision for your organization.  The important thing is that you actually conduct a thorough search that allow you to make an informed hiring decision.

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The most common question asked by potential customers is "what is the cost of doing a background check"?  The answer is never easy.  But let’s start with a few basics.  First and foremost, the price charged for a background check is most commonly attributed to anticipated or demonstrated volume and the types of services ordered.  Volume meaning the more background checks you order, the better the price.  Services ordered can vary.  Some clients just do a basic criminal check while others order criminal checks, employment verifications, etc. 

Now comes the more challenging part of the equation: the apples to apples comparison.  The most common differentiating factor in the nebulous term "background check" is how criminal convictions are sought: County Criminal Records, State Repositories (if and where available) and commercial databases.  The best method for obtaining thorough and accurate search is to conduct an in-person county criminal record search wherever your applicant has resided, worked or gone to school over at least the last seven years.  The county level is where the overwhelming majority of convictions that matter to employers occur and give you the best chance of finding information.  This method usually takes the most time (1-4 days on average) and is the most expensive method.  State repositories can be hit and miss for a number of reasons.  Most states cannot mandate that their county courts report information, how often they report it or what types of information they report.  Normal institution tells you that the larger the sampling size, the better chance you have of finding more.  Unfortunately, that intuition is based on the fallacy that the larger sampling size is just as thorough and accurate as the smaller one.  Lastly, there are commercial databases, the quickest and cheapest method for obtaining a criminal background check.  Also, the most unreliable (see article on national criminal database searches).  Commercial databases rely on various reporting agencies willingness to provide or sell data.  Such sources can include corrections facilities, some county courthouses, some state sponsored sites.  There can be as many holes in these databases as there are in swiss cheese.  Having said that, statewide and database searches can be a good compliment to the county search, just not a good primary method.

Having said all of that, the buyer needs to make the age old decision: time vs. quality (accuracy) vs. cost.  And there are other factors to be considered here: how much time, money and energy would be spent defending a negligence claim for not utilizing a proper screening tool?  How can I put a price tag on the negative publicity from one incident in the workplace?  These are questions only a buyer can answer, but when you think about the aforementioned factors you are armed with the tools you need to make an informed decision.  Kind of like the results of a background check.   

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It only stands to reason that employers think about ratcheting up background checks when it comes to screening potential executives.  The prevailing logic is "these positions pay a lot of money and I want to make sure that everything looks good".  You can’t argue with this institution.  Executives do make more money, they are hard to replace and even more difficult to find.  In addition to the cursory searches (Social Security Number Trace and County Criminal Records Check), employers should consider the following:  Federal Criminal Record Search- While a minuscule number of crimes are prosecuted at the federal level, they are mainly the types of convictions that would concern employers.  Many, but not all federal convictions are white collar in nature.  Employment Verifications- While important for many other positions, employment verifications are vital for executives.  It will help to confirm items such as starting and ending title, starting and ending salary, starting and ending position and responsibilities, etc.  Education Verifications- Confirms education degrees and we have all seen many public embarrassments based on fraudulent education credentials.  Professional License Verification- Confirm that your candidate is in fact a member of a state bar, a licensed medical practitioner, a CPA, etc.   

These are just some of the searches employers should consider when screening executive candidates.  A more specific list should be discussed based on the unique needs of an organization.  I guess the most important message here is that whatever you choose to do, make sure that you perform a thorough background check.  The risk for not doing so is just too great.

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