By Jason Morris, President & Kevin Bachman, VP of Quality Service.

We have made a conscious effort over the years to NOT make our blog a self-promotional site.  In fact, it’s with great care that we let you draw your own conclusions from the information that we put out.

On Sunday a story hit the AP wire that has made its way around our industry.  The article, points a wicked finger at the screening industry as dangerous, lazy and careless.  The article calls out a few background check companies, also known as Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRA’s) for reporting incorrect, and un-verified information to employers. Employers use these inaccurate reports to deny people jobs, hurting innocent people simply looking for work.

We love to take strong positions against inaccurate reporting. We find no more pleasure than calling out news that is wrong, looking smarter than some reporter looking to make his bones by writing a careless expose… WE CAN’T DO THAT HERE.  The reporter was right in all aspects except one; WE ARE NOT ALL THE SAME!

Are there companies that are careless and quick to pass along outdated or inaccurate information? YES. Are there companies that use only databases and don’t research actual court records? YES. Are there companies that simply scrape data off of court websites and don’t check it for accuracy? You guessed it, YES AGAIN.  It’s these companies that give us all a bad name; pushing onto employers the idea that screening is a commodity then sell the cheapest product possible to fit neatly into the world they’ve just created.

There are reasons for this.  Conducting background checks is a complicated business. The employers are generally unaware of the nuances of local, county, state, and federal laws, their processes, problems or regulations. And that’s not their fault. It’s not their business.  But without this knowledge, and with all companies claiming to do the same thing, it’s easy to discount claims of service and accuracy and simply look at price and whiz-bang technology systems.  On the other side, these screening companies know this; and their use of terms like “criminal search”, “instant” and “national background check,” combined with bells and whistles software allows them to perpetuate a higher degree of accuracy than their processes actually provide.

Last week we wrote about our experience at the Criminal Records and Employment Conference at Cornell ILR Law School in NY.  We wrote about the civil rights activists that were upset about all things screening.  We still stand tall and disagree with many of their positions; however, it’s stories like this that help us realize why they are so upset!  People are getting hurt everyday by these careless background checks and companies hiding behind loopholes in the Fair Credit Reporting Act rather than taking personal responsibility for their actions.

Its because of all this that EmployeeScreenIQ takes a “No Shortcuts” approach to all things screening.  “No Shortcuts” is more than just a tagline or fancy marketing campaign. It is the foundation for how we operate our business. This mantra is employed at every level of our organization so that you can make informed hiring decisions. One of the worst things you can do in your background screening process is to make a hiring decision based on inaccurate data. Rather than just reporting raw, unconfirmed information, EmployeeScreenIQ takes the necessary steps to ensure the results are reliable, accurate and up to date. Three fundamental principles of the Federal law WE choose to follow.

Before reporting criminal records to you, our Public Records department actually confirms that the information we’ve found belongs to your applicant. They also actually consult our 50 state compliance guide to ensure that the record is legally reportable. Believe it or not, the same methods apply to verifying other pieces of adverse information such as employment and education verifications. We’re all for streamlining the process and reducing turnaround time, but it should NEVER come at the expense of a quality product. Want proof that our methods work? Only .017% of all county criminal checks we complete are disputed.  (A dispute rate that this article points out screening companies are unwilling to publish!!!)

The proof is in the pudding.  EmployeeScreenIQ has successfully achieved compliance with the National Association of Professional Background Screeners accreditation program and is formally recognized as Background Screening Credentialing Council Accredited.  This recognition affirms EmployeeScreenIQ’s commitment to excellence, accountability, high professional standards and continued institutional improvement. Less than 2% of employment screening companies have earned this distinction and we are pleased to share such a small stage.

Accreditation is an important seal of approval that all companies should look for when choosing a provider as it is the only program in our field that proves their procedures are compliant with industry best practices. It also affirms security protocols, industry knowledge and expertise.

AP IMPACT: When your criminal past isn’t yours

This week I had the pleasure of going to New York City for the Richard Netter Conference on Criminal Records and Employment at the Cornell University ILR  School.  I had heard about the conference a few months back and was happy to join other representatives from the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS).  In what I anticipated being a complete hatchet job on the screening industry, it turned out that we agree on many more points than we disagree; and that’s a great start! The focus of the conference was a to have a better understanding of and a meeting of the minds on issues such as civil rights of former offenders, right to work, and other societal issues of the day related to criminal activity in the U.S..  The good news is there was a lot of broad range of topics discussed in this nine hour conference. The bad news is it has given me a lot to write about and Nick, even more to edit!

I anticipate that several posts will come out of this experience.  The first will be a general recap of the sessions and the questions raised.  I intend to drill down further on each of these issues and panels in future posts.

The keynote speaker was Cornell William Brooks, Esq.  Cornell is the President and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.  Mr. Brooks is a civil rights advocate and frequent speaker on criminal reentry into the workplace.  Brooks gave an excellent speech, set the stage for the issues that would be discussed and touched on many of the topics that face minorities today when trying to re-enter society.

The first panel was, “What are the issues of uniformity/inaccuracy in the reporting of criminal records? How do Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRA’s) operate?” In addition to Montserrat Miller, the lobbyist for NAPBS, the panel also included scholars and a non NAPBS member screening company.  In my opinion this panel proved the importance of NAPBS membership, specifically because of the standards our members strive to achieve.  Professor Shawn Bushway, a frequent speaker and author of studies on criminal recidivism gave an overview of his research and, what I believe to be, some conclusions based on very old data.  For instance, in his research he shows criminal repositories to have more accurate dispositions than actual county court records.  Those of us in the screening industry and many HR professionals know this couldn’t be further from the truth.  Admittedly he says the data is older and needs updating.

The second panel, “Title VII, Adverse impact and criminal records as a selection device matrix approaches, and the uniform selection guidelines” was well received.  The panelists were mostly attorneys on both sides of the issues.  I felt the most impactful was P. David Lopez, General Counsel of the EEOC.  He raised many controversial issues, such as the EEOC not being convinced that negligent hiring suits are not as important as perceived discrimination of ex-offenders in the workplace.  Mr. Lopez made an assumption that negligent hiring lawsuits have been on the decline. Personally I believe that begs the question; are they on the decline because more companies are doing background checks?

After our lunch address we had our third panel, “What do employers need to know when using criminal records? What is relevant to hiring? Employer’s fear of negligent hiring suits.”  I was really interested in this panel mainly because a true industry perspective would be on the panel, a member of the NAPBS Board of Directors., he was also joined by Alfred Blumstein and Kiminoi Nakamura, authors of a oft-cited controversial study focusing on criminal recidivism.  This study followed 88,000 first time offenders from 1980 in the state of New York.  The study showed a very low rate of recidivism for these “first time offenders”, however the conclusion derived from the research is full of holes due to a number of scenarios that we not considered.  The study only covered first time offenders, it does not track crimes outside of New York, and recidivism assumes that the person has actually been caught. We have covered this study a few times in the past.

Our fourth and final panel had the most impact on the audience.  “Restoration Issues: What employment models work? Is ban the box an answer to refusal to hire?”  The final speaker on this panel was an ex-convict who spent 19 years in prison for a 1992 manslaughter conviction.  Still out on parole, Anthony Cardenales is now a supply chain manager at a well known recycling company. Mr. Cardenales is a poster child for giving someone a second chance and he gave an excellent speech to support it.  The owner of his company, WeRecycle, was also in attendance and gave a glowing recommendation for other employers to follow suit and give a chance to ex-offenders.  The tone was that background checks weed out possible good employees and employers should look beyond what is on a rap sheet.  I posed the question to him, “do you still conduct background checks?”  His indicated that he does.  He said that they are worried about theft and do their best to identify those with significant theft records.  I still struggle with giving a chance to someone who clearly killed another human being over someone who took property from another, but everyone is entitled to take their own risks in business.  The most troubling speaker was an attorney that made the claim that our industry uses extreme examples of sex offenders trying to work with children.  She made it look like folklore, like a boogey man that doesn’t exist.  Perhaps she has not been following the recent events at Penn State and Syracuse.  With over 700,000 registered sex offenders in the United States, all looking for work at some point, I hardly identify this as extreme.  Putting these types of offenders aside, she must have no understanding for the other violent, dishonest and non qualified people that might be trying to work for someone’s company.  We have always stated that there is a job for everyone, however, there is sometimes just too much risk when there is no protection to an employer, their employees or their customers .

There will be more to come on this conference in the coming weeks!

We just published The Verifier XXIV, Fall 2011 Edition, a publication intended as an educational tool and information resource for human resource professionals or anyone interested in keeping abreast of recent employment screening and background check industry developments.

Highlights of this issue include the following:

Articles:

• Time to Streamline Your Background Screening Process? Check Out Our Latest Video
• No Shortcuts. Smarter Screening Equals Intelligent Hiring.
• Top Commercial Airline Flies High With EmployeeScreenIQ
• 2011 Background Check Turkey Awards
• Background Checks Gone Wild Hurt Us All

Announcements and Legislative Updates

• EmployeeScreenIQ Rated Top 5 Screening Firm in U.S.
• California Governor Bans Use of Employment Credit Reports
• EmployeeScreenIQ Announces Integration with Taleo Business Edition
• EmployeeScreenIQ Recognized as Fastest Growing Company

Check it out!

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) will hold a meeting on the use of criminal records for employment screening purposes on Tuesday, July 26, in Washington, D.C.  The National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS), which we are members of, is preparing comments for submittal to the EEOC on the relevance and benefits of access to criminal history records by employers.  NAPBS is also partnering with other associations and coalitions as we move toward the July meeting date. This will be a full Commission meeting, meaning all five Commissioners and EEOC’s General Counsels will attend. This includes Chairwoman Jacqueline Berrien, Commissioner Chai Feldblum, Commissioner Stuart Ishimaru, Commissioner Vicky Lipnic and Commissioner Constance Barker.  A formal agenda has not yet been released but it is excepted there will be multiple panels including academics, lawyers, victim’s groups (i.e., those who have been denied employment due to their criminal history), government officials, litigants from the El v. Septa case and others.

Given the importance of this meeting to our industry, to our clients and our blog followers, we want to ensure that you are aware of this upcoming meeting and have the opportunity to join in our efforts to ensure that the interests of the providers and users of criminal records are represented.

The role of the use of criminal records in employment screening will be the focus of this meeting and as employers have an important stake in what is being considered during the meeting, we encourage you to add this date to your calendar and make plans to attend the hearing on July 26 if possible.  The meeting will be open to the public and it will not be webcast or televised, although a transcript will be available after the meeting.

iEmployeeScreen Mobile is coming soon and we wanted you to be the first to know!

iEmployeeScreen Mobile provides you with a 360-degree understanding of emerging technology, the ever-changing world of legislation and regulations, plus the latest trends and best practices in employment screening.

• Expert articles, legislative updates and other industry happenings.
• It’s like having the EmployeeScreenIQ website at your fingertips!

Register to be notified when iEmployeeScreen mobile app is available

Coming to ?

Visit EmployeeScreenIQ at SHRM in Las Vegas (booth #2557), where we’ll be giving away iTunes gift certificates for the first, 100th, and 500th mobile app downloads.

In spring 2010, more than 600 HR professionals shared their views on the trends and challenges that will shape the future of employment background screening. The results are in and EmployeeScreenIQ has compiled them into a 14-page report that covers:

• Attitudes about emerging issues
• Changes in the importance of background screening
• Laws to protect job applicants
• Screening contract workers
• Attitudes of hiring managers and candidates

Respondents also share their insights and perspective about topical issues such as diploma mills, credit checks, employment history fraud, and more.

NOTE: For an engaging commentary on the survey findings, check out a new podcast interview with EmployeeScreenIQ’s Nick Fishman below.

EmployeeScreenIQ is surveying the HR world, and six minutes could win you a Kindle

How important are background checks in your hiring process? Which matters more: criminal background checks or credit reports? Where do contractors fit in?

You’re invited to participate in the 2010 Employment Background Screening Trends Survey from EmployeeScreenIQ. It takes only 6-7 minutes to complete and covers attitudes about emerging issues, diploma mills, laws to protect job applicants, and more.

Just by completing the survey, you’ll be entered in a prize drawing to win an Amazon Kindle E-reader. All participants will receive an executive summary of the survey results in June.

Click below to share your thoughts!

Two job applicants with minor criminal records have gone to court to challenge the way the Census Bureau screens applicants for work as census takers.

In a class action suit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in New York, Eugene Johnson, 48, of the Bronx, N.Y., and Evelyn Houser, 69, of Philadelphia say they were unfairly rejected for census jobs this year because they could not provide court records of their cases settled decades earlier.

Johnson and Houser say they are among thousands who were not hired because records are no longer available for misdemeanor offenses committed long ago. The two, who are African Americans, say the Census Bureau’s screening practices amount to discrimination against blacks, Latinos and Native Americans, who have higher arrest rates that remain on their records even if there was no prosecution or conviction.

The Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, declined to comment on a pending lawsuit, but spokesman Nick Kimball cited safety as a reason for rules about hiring job candidates with criminal histories.

“Americans must be confident that if they don’t mail back their forms and a census taker must come to their door, we’ve taken steps to ensure their safety,” he said.

Johnson, who has done field survey work for pollsters and market researchers, was arrested on misdemeanor assault charges in 1995 stemming from a dispute with his landlord over rent. He was sentenced to perform community service and pay restitution.

Houser, a retired housekeeper and home health aide, has a 1981 case for theft and forgery involving a check that she found near a dumpster and cashed. She was placed in a diversionary program and was not formally convicted. She was hired as a census taker in 1990.

This year, when the Census Bureau is expected to hire more than 700,000 temporary census takers, FBI fingerprint checks have been run for the first time on all applicants. Serious felonies automatically disqualify applicants, but people convicted of less severe transgressions can be hired. Census Director Robert M. Groves has been vague about which crimes could keep a job candidate in contention. Hundreds of job seekers with criminal records have shown up at job fairs in Washington to take the test given to all applicants.

Samuel R. Miller, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said the FBI database collects arrest records from states but has a notorious backlog in keeping track of dispositions.

More

I really wasn’t using this story as a reason to post a album cover from one of my favorite bands, really!  It is an interesting story, a position that many HR professionals have found themselves in during their career.  What do I ask? How do I ask it? How do I NOT get sued for asking it wrong….

“Dr. Young” was a candidate for a senior administrative position at an institution that was a very good match for his interests. The chair of the search committee asked him to meet for a long lunch in a nice restaurant in a city a couple of hours away (an attempt at a bit of privacy). The lunch went incredibly well. Their conversations were completely relaxed and laughter punctuated much of their time together.

As the committee chair outlined details of the challenges and opportunities of the position, Dr. Young found himself even more interested than he had been prior to the meeting.

As their time together dwindled, the chair leaned in and said, in a half-whisper, “Before we leave, I have to ask you one last question. Please understand that I feel awkward asking this, but this is the best setting to ask since it’s just the two of us. Do you have any skeletons in your closet?”

Dr. Young was caught off guard by the question. What exactly did this mean? He thought immediately of an old job-interview joke he had once heard: Interviewer: “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?” Interviewee, in a relieved tone of voice: “Convicted? Whew! No.”

How far back did he need to go in his answer? College indiscretions? High-school hijinks? What kind of skeletons? Financial issues? Romantic complications?

The chair clarified slightly: “We will do a complete background check, including a credit check, on finalists for this position, so I figure it’s better to ask in person and let the candidate withdraw in advance if something might be found. It’s better for everyone to ask this early.”

Dr. Young later asked a friend who was an employment lawyer about the question, and the lawyer said, “He was trying to get you to self-disclose information that they might or might not discover on their own. It’s sort of a trick question, a little like ‘When will you stop beating your spouse?’”

What advice might you offer a candidate who fields such a question?

Full Article