Census Workers and the Background Checks

Two job applicants with minor criminal records have filed challenges in court with the Census Bureau and their pre-employment screening process.

They claim they were unfairly rejected because the could not provide court records surrounding their settled cases.

Records are no longer available for misdemeanor offenses committed long ago. The two African American men claim the screening process is racially charged as the majority of applicants with these types of offenses will be black, Latino, or Native American.

The Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, declined to comment, but their spokesperson, Nick Kimball did state that safety was the reason for the screening process:

"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."

The Census Bureau is expected to hire more than 700,000 temporary employees and will use FBI fingerprint checks for the first time.

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Checking Credit Under Fire

It is known that retailers acrosss the country lose more than $30 billion a year because of employee theft. Workplace violence costs employers over $55 million a year in lost wages. A whopping third of all employees provide bogus information on their resumes.

It is statistics like these that have raised the number of employers requiring background checks on the new hires.

However, there has been no evidence showing that people with weak credit are more likely to be bad employees or to steal from the bosses.

Eric Rosenberg of the TransUnion credit bureau admits, "at this point we don't have any research to show any statistical correlation between what's in somebody's credit report and their job performance or their likelihood to commit fraud."

Legislators in more than a dozen states have introduced bills to curb the use of credit checks during the hiring process, and as Liberty reported last week, three states have passed such laws.

"Bernie Madoff had a pretty good credit score," said Matthew Lesser, Connecticut state representative. "And yet there is this consistent message that if you have a bad credit score, there is something wrong with you."

However, credit bureaus believe that access to this crucial information is important for the business that wants to protect itself from catastrophic losses and should be used as a piece of the puzzles of an employees overall history, "not the absolute yes or no toggle switch."

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Protect Your Business, Verify Past Employment

The fact that recent studies indicate that nearly 75% of all resumes contain some sort of falsification and that 89% are downright misleading means that a background check with a resume verification is in order for all pre-employment screening procedures.

An employer's lack of foresight can come back to haunt them. In fact, companies can be held liable for negligent hiring and retention. There can be public relations nightmares. All can be avoided by the due diligence, resume verification and education verification can head off wrongful termination lawsuits, it saves you time and money otherwise wasted by recruiting, hiring, and training the wrong applicants.

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Prohibition of Credit History for Employment Purposes

Effective immediately, Washington State, Oregon, and Hawaii have enacted new laws prohibiting the use of credit histories for employment purposes including hiring, discharge, promotion, and compensation.

The provides exceptions for financial institutions, public safety offices, and other employment if credit history is job-related and use is disclosed to the applicant or employee.

The law establishes any violation as unlawful employment practice, enforceable through the Bureau of Labor and Industries and civil action.

We recommend our clients consult with their legal counsel prior to ordering credit reports for employment purposes.

For more information about these laws might affect you, it is highly recommended you consult with an attorney. Before hiring or performing a credit check on any prospective employee from these states, be sure you understand the laws clearly.

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USA Swimming to Check Coaches

Recently sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting young swimmers, Andrew King had access to the young girls through his position as a USA swimming coach for more than 30 years.

The King case exposed the massive shortcomings of USA Swimming and local swim clubs in dealing with coaches who preyed on their young swimmers. The coaches manage to jump from team to team, ahead of allegations surrounding their departure.

Chuck Wielgus, the executive director of USA Swimming said that it is his goal to create a "gold standard program for dealing with conduct complaints and abuse allegations."

Some say Wieglus' attempts are too little too late. In 2005, in a "State of USA Swimming" address, USA Swimming president, Ron Van Pool said that plans for a background screening process were nearing completion. The plan was not adopted until 2006, and placed the heavy burden of paying for the expensive tests on the volunteer boards at local swim clubs.

In the past 10 years, 36 swim coaches have been banned for life from the USA Swimming for sex abuse or misconduct, but the organization doesn't always notify the police.

USA Swimming is looking to implement the following strategies for dealing with sexual misconduct:

• Anonymous reporting
• Intense examination of how complaints are made and who handles them
• How coaches, swimmers, parents, and staff are educated about appropriate behavior
• Reinforcing to local swim clubs that is their responsibility to conduct in-depth background checks

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Missing Convictions, Why Database Searches are not Foolproof

It is always interesting to discuss what people do for a living. How we all come together from different walks of life and how each of participates in making the world work in it's strange and unique way.

I love being among a group of people that are casual acquaintances. Inevitably, the subject of profession arises. Pre-employment background investigations always receives a raised eyebrow or two, and the "wink" and elbow jab - "Don't pull my information! You don't want to know!"

I tend to think these types of comments are usually joking, however, one night a casual acquaintance had several probing questions for me. Turns out he was able to obtain a job though he had a felony level conviction on his record. He was probing me to find out how that could have happened,

"It's been so hard finding work since it happened, I know they did a background check, but I didn't disclose the information! And they didn't find it!"

The company probably ran a criminal "Database" search. Database searches are inexpensive, making them a great pre-screening tool. But more and more, especially as the economy continues to struggle, companies are relying solely on these searches to weed out former criminals.

But obviously, they're not catching everybody. Lucky for a few of the unemployed. When I asked my acquaintance the nature of his crime? Felony level fraud: Identity Theft.

He is currently employed at your local bank.

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Don't Forget the Marijuana

Lashamma Lawson went to the Dougherty County Jail on Monday, March 2nd in Albany, Georgia to pick up her prepared criminal background check for her new job.

Lawson forgot to remove the ten bags of marijuana from her purse before entering the jail and was arrested when her purse was searched.

Lawson was released on $5,000 bail.

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Report: Background Checks Increase Nationwide

Workforce Management reports that the background screening industry has seen explosive growth over the last decade. Criminal background checks are becoming nearly universal with 93% of all employers nationwide performing some type of criminality check.

10% of employers report that criminal records lead to adverse affects when making a hiring decision.

71% of employers report that they conduct criminal background checks to protect their organization and reduce risk.

There has been some controversy behind the sudden increase. Employers using criminal background checks to make long lists of applicants smaller, to many, appears to be discriminatory. These employers are essentially using criminal records, traffic violations, or bad credit to make character assumptions, even when there the records are not related to the job at hand.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a claim that employers rejecting job applicants based on their credit history and criminal offenses were exclusionary practices and are not indicative of employee performance.

In an online poll, 73% of nearly 2,500 voters agreed that the practice is indeed, discriminatory:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/career/?p=1655

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How to Hire

What do you do when your best employee relocates to another city and another job? You're number one sales associate changes professions? Or your lead manager left for lunch and never returned?

In either scenario, you'll be left in a pinch. In situations such as these, impulse hiring can be tempting, replacing a valued employee can seem daunting, and rash decisions are easily made.

To keep your head on straight during this stressful period, remember a few golden rules:

1. Know the position. The better you understand the requirements of the job, the more simple it will be to pull out the most qualified candidates. Re-think the job description and make sure it truly describes the duties expected and required of the job.

2. Develop an outreach plan. Target your job market effectively by utilizing the appropriate listing services. Job seekers are online, on social networks and looking for the best position available to them. You want to collect the attention of the best job seekers so you want to advertise the position using as many outlets as possible.

3. Screen application. You should have a stack of excellent looking applications and resumes. When it comes time to narrow the playing field, you'll need to weed out anyone who isn't an immediate match. Pre-employment screening is an effective way to do this. Conduct background checks. Call references, not just those listed but check former employers as well. This last step is vital to insuring the safety of your organization.

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Work Place Violence

After the fatal shooting in Orlando, FL and the mass murders at Fort Hood in Texas, the issue of workplace violence has America buzzing again.

The Fort Hood incident has received a lot of media coverage already and is one of those terrifying incidents that remind us all that people are unpredictable and that they can be violent. Due to the large-scale terror inflicted by the gunman at Fort Hood, much of the incident in Orlando was under covered by the media.

After one year at an engineering firm in Orlando, Jason Rodriguez was fired for failure to improve performance. Over the next two years, Rodriguez apparently never got over the termination and returned to the job killing one employee and injuring others.

While rare, these types of incidents remind people in our industry of exactly why background checks are down. Not all workplace violence result in death or serious injury, but we should all be aware of the escalation that can occur. Those instances of non-lethal violence such as stalking, threats, intimidation, harassment or property destruction often go unreported. Bullying can escalate and most businesses, at some point, experience some form of work place violence.

Background checks are important for finding out if a person has a past history of violence, but it is important to remember that if somebody has no past, there is really know way of knowing if they are capable of such violence.

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7 Hot Topics When Selecting a Background Screening Firm

If you are in business, you know that often, one of the best ways to protect your company is to protect it from criminals. Most companies perform pre-employment background checks, band almost all consider it at some point.

As a company makes their selection process the following seven hot issues are things to consider when making your service provider selection. The industry is moving away from the idea that background checks are the unequivocal way to weed out a bad choice, and understand that the entire investigation can actually play a role in defining your company values and what constitutes a qualified candidate.

1. Your service provider should be able to guide you in making decisions based on the quality of information provided. They can help you implement company wide hiring decisions, make them visible to all recruiters. Company-wide hiring standards protect you in the long wrong. Ask your provider or your prospective provider today what they can do to help.

2. Advances in technology allow your provider to give you faster initial screening results that reach a broader amount of sources for information. Automated database searches can give you quick delivery of results, but should also be backed up by in-depth searches to ensure no records were missed. Be wary of a service provider who sells you an instant background check with no other investigations, they are likely utilizing a database and are bound to miss records.

3. New studies indicate previous notions about the likelihood to commit crimes have changed. New laws may be introduced as a result of these studies. Your provider needs to be aware that employment laws are subject to change. You should feel confident your provider will provide you with the information necessary to keep you legal and for the fair treatment of all applicants.

4. As job competition heats up, more and more applicants will be using inflated information on the resumes - they will falsify work information, education history, references, anything they can to get an edge over their competition. Ask your provider what sort of measures they take to ensure your candidate really is the best person of the job, and not just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.

5. Regular follow up background checks are a good idea. Many companies use a background check as a pre-screening tool only, but if your now current employee commits a crime over that long three day weekend, there is a chance you may not know about it. Follow up screenings can be sensitive areas and it's a good idea to consult with your provider to set up company-wide standards and procedures.

6. Employment authorization. Be sure your employees are eligible to work in the United States. The subject has been under scrutiny for the last 3 years in Washington, DC, and many new laws have gone into effect that could seriously undermine your ability to perform well under a government audit.

7. Your provider should also be up to date on the growing unease of the use of credit checks as a pre-screening tool. Washington state, Connecticut and Hawaii have all passed laws regulating the use of this information. Ask your provider how that effects your pre-screening policy today.

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Bankruptcy Can Cost You a Job

Many companies that use background checks like to pull a credit report. Many of the positions they are hiring for might require the applicant to have access to cash, or even bank accounts and clients private information. It's an important check to run, the logic behind that practice is that an individual’s ability to manage personal finances gives a clue about his or her overall responsibility level.

Bankruptcy can be a huge deterrant and can remain on your record for years. Know your rights regarding bankruptcy and how it should and shouldn't affect your ability to retain a job.

Article

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Changes for Criminals Seeking Employment

While still on the campaign trail, one of the many promises Barack Obama made were he to be elected was to break down employment barriers for those with a criminal record.

According to report from SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, more than 80% of employers perform pre-employment background checks. With growing technological advances, tracking and tracing criminal records has become easier than ever.

• In 2006, nearly 81 million criminal records were on file in the states, 74 million of which were in automated databases.


• Another 14 million arrests are recorded every year.

Most employers are unwilling to hire an ex-offender. FCRA laws allow felony records to be reported from the 18th birthday on. Even if person who committed a felony crime at the age of 18 hasn't committed a crime for 20 years they are unlikely to find employment.

Most people would probably agree that there should be some point in time after which ex-offenders should not be handicapped in finding employment. The question is when, precisely, should this occur?

Currently, employers have no empirical guidance on when it might be considered safe to overlook a past criminal record when hiring an ex-offender for a particular job. Employers generally pick an arbitrary number of years for when the relevance of a criminal record should expire: five or 10 years, for example. It goes without saying that different types of employers will have different sensitivities about the potential employee’s criminal record. Those serving vulnerable populations like children and the elderly would be particularly sensitive to a prior record involving violence, while a bank hiring a teller would be particularly sensitive to property crimes. A hiring crew for a construction company might be far less sensitive to most prior records.

A huge study is being funded to test exactly when the turning point for criminal offenders exists. Though the study is ongoing, preliminary results are profound. Criminals have been found to significantly lower their probability to commit another crime, the probability can get as low as an average citizen who has never committed a crime.

The study can be found here.

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Hiring Mistakes Cost Companies

A recent survey by Occupational Health and Safety outlines the trouble hiring mistakes can afford small to mid size companies. Three out of four employers say they've hired one employee they wish they hadn't. Twelve percent of those respondents say that hiring mistake alone cost them about $10,000!

"The businesses we talk to say they are seeing more individuals lying on their résumés or exaggerating their skill sets in order to get scarce jobs. In a down economy, small business owners must be especially vigilant when they bring on new employees," says SurePayroll President Michael Alter.

Most mistakes are being made by negligent or poor hiring decisions. Skipping crucial steps along the way during the hiring process cost these business big:

• "We hired an employee without doing a background check, and then I caught her stealing."
• "We rely mainly on a strong 'gut feeling' to determine if the candidate seems qualified and references check out."
• "Our hiring errors have been largely due to time constraints--we needed to fill a position fast and quickly chose what appeared to be the best applicant from resumes received."

"For small business owners, the psychological and economic strain of making a hiring mistake can be a massive burden on the company," Alter says. "What's more, these kinds of hiring mistakes can be reduced or avoided altogether by implementing proper precautionary measures. Investing in pre-employment screening services is worth the small upfront investment."

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Background Checks Aren't Just for Employers

Just for fun, I thought we'd discuss the online dating industry. So many people utilize sites like Match.com and eHarmony to find love, and why shouldn't they? In a a growing world, it can be harder to connect with like-minded individuals. Online opportunites and website are soaring, but with all the profile indroductions and "About Me" sections, how can you be sure somebody is being truthful? How can you trust what you read?

Just like pre-employment background screening, people inflate their dating "resumes." Some say they are single when they are married. Some lie about how much money they make. While a little digging isn't likely to turn up exact truths about a person, it doesn't hurt to investigate somebody before you get serious about them.

The important things to focus on when exploring somebody's background check is to reveal criminal history and marital status. Lots of times, people are not what they want you to see.

Just a warning from Liberty Screening. We take pride in protecting you in your workplace and hope our security precautions can be used as a guide in your private life as well.

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