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… foolish one. It started with a complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ( EEOC ) by Attorney James Freeman at the end of January. Freeman is asking the EEOC for permission to sue American Idol for racial discrimination based on nine African-American contestants who were disqualified, all of whom also had a criminal history .

You might be wondering how this case is related to employment and why Freeman submitted the request to the EEOC. And the question in …

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Does anyone else feel like they blinked and January was gone? That’s definitely how I feel! We managed to catch the tail end of January to release the latest issue of By The Way. Angela Bosworth addresses questions like: What if an employer demands access to an employee’s private Facebook profile? Why are data brokers “wanted”? How accurate can a mobile app background check be? Read this issue of BTW to find out the answers and watch Angela’s summary of this month’s BTW. Monday we wrote about a new law for the state of Indiana which will require anyone applying for a teaching position to have a national criminal records background check. Nick also blogged about a two year case between the EEOC and Kaplan Higher Education that recently came to a close. See below to read more on these stories. Continue to stay tuned for more information for our February webinar featuring Jason Morris, Nick Fishman and Angela Bosworth, who will be presenting our 2013 survey findings.

BTW: January Issue- Privacy and Employment Background Checks

For those of you interested in keeping up with the latest in pre-employment background screening compliance and the laws that affect your use of employee background checks, check out our latest publication, “BTW: Your Guide to Staying Out of Hot Water“. This compliance resource has been crafted by our VP of Compliance and General Counsel, Angela Bosworth and is a must-read for human resources and security professionals. Read More

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Strike up the band, pop the champagne and raise the roof!!!!  You can’t see me right now, but I’m doing my happy dance.

For the past 2 years we’ve chronicled the EEOC’s case against Kaplan Higher Education in which they alleged that Kaplan’s use of employment credit reports constituted a discriminatory hiring practice.  Today, I’m happy to share that a motion for summary judgment has granted in Kaplan’s behalf and the case has been tossed. [...]

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It’s hard to believe that yet another week is coming to a close. EmployeeScreenIQ received exciting news this week on our Employment Screening Trends Survey-we had nearly 1,000 participants respond with opinions on a variety of trends in our industry. We also posted a couple of great blogs by Angela Bosworth, our VP of Compliance and General Counsel. Arguably a controversial topic, one story Angela wrote about involved a court that requested access to the plaintiff’s Facebook profile for information regarding the case. Most recently, Nick Fishman shared some thoughts from his experience at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ hearing, a little over a month ago. See below for more details and as always, subscribe to our blog to keep up with the latest trends and news in our industry.

Court Allows Discovery of Private Posts on Facebook

Facebook is a seemingly endless source of juicy intel. As such, I always recommend that users lock down their privacy settings if they want to keep “the man” out of their timeline. Public posts are fair game for employers and anyone else who is interested. Read More

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 “I would suggest to (businesses) that they think long and hard about why they think they need to do a criminal background check”.

John Hendrickson, Regional Attorney for the EEOC’s Chicago District

If I asked you what the context of this quote was and what the EEOC attorney meant when he made these comments, what would you say?

Well, that was the primary question directed to me by Civil Rights Commissioner Dave Kladney following my testimony last month at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ hearing on the impact of criminal background checks and the EEOC guidance on the consideration of arrest and conviction records.  And I have to admit, I was so floored by the question thinking that it was so obvious that I had a total Scooby Doo moment; ZOINKS!!!!

I was so caught off guard that I thought I must have missed something.  Check out the actual transcript below. [...]

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As many of you know, we have been asking for participation in our 2012 Employment Background Screening Trends Survey for the past several weeks. We closed the survey this past Friday and we’re excited to announce that the response was phenomenal with nearly 1,000 survey participants. So we would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to everyone that took the time to provide your invaluable feedback for our industry. For anyone who missed our survey, some of the topics included were criminal records, new EEOC guidelines, resume distortions and social media within background screening.

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I have a confession to make.  I’ve looked back on all of my blog posts from this past year and I’ve noticed a disturbing trend: I’m angry.  Angry at the the EEOC for introducing new criminal background check guidelines which I believe are unclear and unfair to employers.  Angry at fellow background screening companies when they don’t do everything in their power to ensure accurate employee background checks and for giving those that are against what we do fodder to oppose us.  And angry at organizations that fail to perform proper due diligence on prospective employees, especially those working with children.  I suppose someone could have staged an intervention when I started using the photo above on some of my posts or added “Rants” as a blog category (which is what I’m categorizing this blog as).

Why am I so angry?   [...]

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Even as the year is winding down and we inch closer to the holidays, there hasn’t been a dull moment at EmployeeScreenIQ. Nick Fishman shared his testimony at the US Commission on Civil Rights last Friday on behalf of EmployeeScreenIQ, and we posted a summary of his testimony as well. In addition, we had a successful webinar on Tuesday, Selecting a Background Screening Partner. Our expert panelists, Nikki Handy, Darby James, Nick Fishman and Kevin Bachman presented valuable education and experience for attendees-look for our release of the recorded webinar soon. We also took a few moments to reflect on the 2011 employment screening trends survey in expectation for the results of our 2012 trends survey. We covered several news stories as well including a legislative update on the legalization of marijuana in addition to stories of criminal records and employment verifications. Highlighted below are just a few of this week’s stories, but see our blog for other posts that may be of interest. Unrelated to blog updates, EmployeeScreenIQ had our annual holiday party last Friday-see our company photo below, and to see more photos, go to our company Facebook page (and feel free to like us too). Have a great weekend!

Testimony for U.S. Civil Rights Commission Hearing on Background Checks

Last week, I had the tremendous honor and privilege of providing testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights at their hearing on the impact of criminal background checks and the EEOC’s conviction policy on the employment of Black and Hispanic workers. The purpose of my remarks were to highlight how background screening companies like EmployeeScreenIQ and employers conduct and employ the use of employee background checks in a responsible manner. Many of you have expressed interest, so rather than condensing my message, I thought it best to post my testimony in full. See More

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In just a couple weeks, our 2012 Employment Background Screening Trends survey will be wrapping up, so we’re taking a few moments to reflect on the results of last year’s survey as well as review the upcoming trends for 2013. See below for last year’s survey results. In addition, as we eagerly await the results from this year’s survey, take a look at the comparisons of 2012 trends to the upcoming trends of 2013: [...]

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Last week, I had the tremendous honor and privilege of providing testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights at their hearing on the impact of criminal background checks and the EEOC’s conviction policy on the employment of Black and Hispanic workers.  The purpose of my remarks were to highlight how background screening companies like EmployeeScreenIQ and employers conduct and employ the use of employee background checks in a responsible manner.  Many of you have expressed interest, so rather than condensing my message, I thought it best to post my testimony in full.  Please see below.

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