There’s something about fake Time covers these days. Most recently, another of these magazine mock-ups was among the embellishments to put a candidate in line for a senior-level promotion at the U.S. State Department. What’s more, the résumé that helped land her an initial post as a deputy assistant secretary included lies about her education, the non-profit she ran, and her contributions to the United Nations.
It was a vetting embarrassment for the White House and added to a growing list of critical background search fails earning employers some big headlines—and not in a good way. From Uber and Lyft to suburban school districts, organizations are struggling with pre-employment background screening.
Part of the problem is that hiring is multifaceted. There are résumés to review, interviews to hold, assessments to administer, and background screenings to order and adjudicate. With all of these moving pieces, how can you make sure essentials like credential verification and criminal history searches are handled properly? Here are three suggestions.
But a ho-hum attitude toward background checks doesn’t work today, if it ever did. There is evidence that falsified job applications are becoming more common. And research indicates that 1 in 3 applicants have inaccuracies on their résumés.
Without adequate background investigations, employers risk hiring individuals who are far less qualified than they claim. And then there are the dangers of bringing on the true bad actors—liability, reputation damage, lost revenues, and most tragically, harm to customers, employees, or other stakeholders.
It is absolutely essential to spend the time to develop impeccable screening practices and to invest in the tools and assistance required to do the job right.
This isn’t the type of thing organizations can do in-house, and freeware solutions won’t cut it. Employers should seriously consider bringing in experts who can help craft the most informative and fully compliant searches for each type of role for which they hire. Personalized, full-service providers are a valuable resource.
Of course, outsourcing tasks like education and work history verifications, reference checks, and licensure confirmations also frees HR personnel from excessive administration. Imagine the ROI when they can focus on strategic initiatives instead!
It was a vetting embarrassment for the White House and added to a growing list of critical background search fails earning employers some big headlines—and not in a good way. From Uber and Lyft to suburban school districts, organizations are struggling with pre-employment background screening.
Part of the problem is that hiring is multifaceted. There are résumés to review, interviews to hold, assessments to administer, and background screenings to order and adjudicate. With all of these moving pieces, how can you make sure essentials like credential verification and criminal history searches are handled properly? Here are three suggestions.
#1 Commit to it
Some organizations have viewed background investigations as a box-checking activity. Maybe they’re federal contractors and the government requires them, or pre-employment screenings are an HR best practice the company adopted without much thought.But a ho-hum attitude toward background checks doesn’t work today, if it ever did. There is evidence that falsified job applications are becoming more common. And research indicates that 1 in 3 applicants have inaccuracies on their résumés.
Without adequate background investigations, employers risk hiring individuals who are far less qualified than they claim. And then there are the dangers of bringing on the true bad actors—liability, reputation damage, lost revenues, and most tragically, harm to customers, employees, or other stakeholders.
It is absolutely essential to spend the time to develop impeccable screening practices and to invest in the tools and assistance required to do the job right.
#2 Involve the experts
Even as the need for background checks is increasing, legal and regulatory changes are making the compliance landscape more complicated. And then there are the processes associated with acquiring information from courts in over 3,000 U.S. counties, departments of corrections, federal crime databases, sex offender and other repositories, and so on.This isn’t the type of thing organizations can do in-house, and freeware solutions won’t cut it. Employers should seriously consider bringing in experts who can help craft the most informative and fully compliant searches for each type of role for which they hire. Personalized, full-service providers are a valuable resource.
Of course, outsourcing tasks like education and work history verifications, reference checks, and licensure confirmations also frees HR personnel from excessive administration. Imagine the ROI when they can focus on strategic initiatives instead!
#3 Seek integration
Sometimes, it’s the management headaches that lead to hiring snafus. If HR teams have to log into multiple systems to verify that a criminal search was run, references were called, and a drug test came back clean, it’s easy for something to fall through the cracks.
That’s why Asurint devotes so much attention to integration. We work seamlessly with many ATS solutions and counting and we offer custom-integration capabilities, too. Whichever tools your organization uses, Asurint background screenings can be built into your existing workflow.
Don’t be the next employer to hit the news cycle or pay out a big settlement due to a pre-employment screening oversight. Get help putting your background search house in order. Contact us today.