So you’ve got the background check results. Now what?

So you’ve requested a background check on your potential hire, and you’ve just been handed the results. What do you do with the employment screening results? Who’s allowed to see them? How should you handle the information you’ve discovered, and what, if anything, should you disclose to the candidate about what their background check has turned up?

First and foremost, there should be a strict level of confidence when it comes to sharing these records. Whether they turn up anything negative or not, they are to remain confidential between the hiring manager, the candidate, and the company’s human resources department.

If anything is uncovered that may give the employer a reason not to hire someone, the employer is required to tell the applicant that their criminal report was reviewed, and they must furnish a copy of the report that cites the infraction in question.

The employer must also provide the job candidate with a copy of the FTC’s Summary of Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This document informs them of the following rights:

• That he or she must be told if the criminal record has been used to decide not to offer employment.
• That he or she has the right to know what’s in the file.
• That he or she can dispute incomplete or inaccurate information.

The employer also must give the candidate any other information the government has available on their rights concerning background checks.

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Study finds many in-home caregivers hired without background screening

A study out of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine has found that many nursing agencies recruit people with no experience to provide in-home care to seniors, and they don’t perform adequate background checks on those hires.

The study looked at the qualifications of caregivers who visit the homes of the elderly to assist with daily activities such as dressing and meal preparation. Published in the July 13 issue of the Journal of American Geriatrics Society, the study found that many agencies nationwide fail to conduct criminal background checks or drug testing for new hires. Of the 180 agencies researchers surveyed in the study, 55 percent conducted a federal criminal background check and only one-third of those agencies interviewed administered drug tests.

Although laws vary by state, such caregiver agencies don’t tend to be regulated, said Dr. Lee Lindquist, lead author on the study. Nursing homes, whose services can be funded by Medicare and were not part of this study, are regulated. According to background information in the study, the typical aide is a recent female immigrant, earning $7.25 an hour on average or, for live-in help, $5.44 an hour.

Industry experts -- and common sense -- have long maintained that any business involving the elderly, the sick, and the very young should have stringent, across-the-board background check and drug testing policies in place. 

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Top Lies Job Applicants Tell

Even in this digital age, at a time when employers are using background checks and other employment screening tactics to fact-check resumes and vet job applicants, people are still trying to outsmart employers with half-truths, omissions and outright lies. No one is immune to this problem. Even solid candidates with a proven track record of employability and on-the-job success have been caught lying on their resumes, adding a degree they didn’t earn or omitting a place of employment that didn’t end well. 

Luckily, a thorough employment screening will find all the hidden secrets and weed out the bad from the good. To make your life just a little bit easier, however, we’ve compiled a list of the top ways job applicants misrepresent themselves while seeking employment. 

1. The job candidate provides a false date of birth in hopes of throwing off a criminal records search. Most criminal records are filed by name and date of birth; without that information, a search will be fruitless, or incomplete at worst. 
2. The job candidate gives a false Social Security number, in order to hide places he or she has lived, or try to “prove” he or she is legal to work in this country. 
3. The job applicant omits a previous employer from their application or resume. Sometimes they fudge the dates they were employed before and after that mysteriously missing employer, to close the gap in time. When conducting employment verification, verify dates of employment as well as salary. 
4. Applicant makes up an employer.  It’s astounding, but it happens. Job applicants who have what they consider too long of a gap between legitimate employment sometimes invent an organization or obscure company for which they “worked.”
5. The job candidate includes a degree he didn’t earn. Sometimes this is from a legitimate college or university; other times they might have a degree in hand but it’s from an unaccredited university

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Spokeo fined $800k for peddling inaccurate info about job applicants

Employers often rely on background check companies to provide the accurate information needed to make critical hiring decisions. So what happens when the employment screening services you’re paying for can’t be trusted? 

Last week Spokeo, an online data broker, agreed to pay an $800,000 fine to the Federal Communications Commission to settle charges it sold inaccurate information about job applicants and violated consumer protection laws. The FTC charged the broker with marketing profile information to human resource departments for background screenings on prospective employees. According to the complaint, Spokeo provided the information without first taking steps to ensure the information was accurate and without adhering to consumer protections provided by the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, credit reporting agencies and other entities that broker certain information about consumers must make an effort to provide fair and accurate information and give people an opportunity to correct inaccurate information about themselves. The data brokers also are supposed to put limits on who can access the information.

Make sure the company you have entrusted to perform employment screening services on your prospective employees is following the law and giving you accurate information. Search until you find a reputable company with no judgments against them. The future of your business depends on it! 

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Is salary history part of your screening process?

Are you an employer who asks for salary history as part of your hiring process? If so, do you use that information to make your decision on whether or not to hire someone? It seems like such a small detail, but could bring legal problems, depending on how that kind of information is gathered and used. 

Asking for salary history is definitely within an employer’s legal rights, and most job applicants are happy to provide such information. If you are using a third party employment screening service to gather such information, however, you must have written pre-approval by the applicant. And if the figures you find come into play when deciding not to hire that person, you are required to let them know, as according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act they have a legal right to explain or correct any errors or information you’ve found. 

While a job applicant is not required to share salary history, some employers have found that asking for it ends up serving as one way to judge character, because lying about one’s salary history is an easy one to catch. 

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Not All Drug Tests Are Created Equal

Everyone knows what drug testing is, but not everyone understands that term does not mean one specific test. There are two main types of drug tests, the 5 panel and the 10 panel, and the one you choose depends on how many different kinds of drugs you want to test for. 

5-Panel Test: This is the standard test with which most employers are familiar. It tests for five drugs: Amphetamine, Cannabinoids (Marijuana), Cocaine, Opiates, and Phencyclidine (PCP). The 5-panel is all that is permitted by the Department of Transportation (DOT) in its mandatory testing program. 

10-Panel Test: For most non-regulated employers, a 10-panel drug test typically will work better than a 5-panel test. However, because employers know some prescription drugs have the potential to become addictive, the 10-panel drug test also screens for several legal drugs that are also known to be drugs of abuse. The test screens for tricyclic antidepressants, benzodiazepines, opiates, methadone, barbiturates and methamphetamine.

In addition to the drugs, the 10-panel drug test can also measure characteristics of the urine sample, such as the pH level. Testing the characteristics of the sample can show if the urine has been altered to cheat the test.

Alcohol testing: Regulated breathalyzer testing is used to determine an individual’s breath alcohol level. It can be conducted with certified results through a medical professional.

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DIY employment screening doesn’t save money

Times are tight for just about everyone, and that means smart businesses are finding large and small ways to cut corners. If you are an employer who has decided to conduct your own pre-employment screening rather than hire a professional employment screening service, have you considered all that the do-it-yourself process entails?

First, it’s important to realize how much work is involved with pre-employment screening. First there is the education verification, to ensure the applicant hasn’t padded his or her resume with a degree that wasn’t earned or a learning institution that is not accredited. Then there’s the tedious process of delving into public records to find out what you can about the applicant’s criminal background. The information kept in public records vary from state to state, so multiple searches must be conducted to get the most thorough results. Also the information in a public criminal record varies based on the offense and how many years have gone by since the arrest or conviction.

It’s easy enough to pull an applicant’s credit report, but wading through the pages of information to get a general sense of the person’s financial standing and fiscal responsibility can be difficult if you’re not trained to know what to look for and how to interpret credit score numbers and notes.

Finally, checking references, both professional and personal, can become a full-time job, leaving voicemails, setting up time to call, and keeping track of who you’ve talked to and what they said.

Conducting the entire process yourself might seem like it’s saving you money, but if you added up the hours you lost from your regular duties in order to gather and decipher information about a single candidate, you’d realize your time is much better spent hiring a professional employment screening service, and getting back to whatever it is you do best.

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