Number of diploma mills in U.S. jumped 20 percent in 2011

The job market is tough, and more people are responding to the increased competition by falling for — or knowingly using — diploma mills that offer fake degrees and false education credentials. According to Verifile Limited’s second annual Accredibase report, there was a 48 percent increase worldwide in the number of known fake diploma mills in the past year. These are mostly online entities that lack valid accreditation and recognition but somehow coerce unsuspecting — or desperate — people to pay good money for useless degrees.

According to the 2011 report, the United States remains the world’s fake college capital. Last year saw a 20 percent increase in known diploma mills in this country, up from 810 to 1,008. While more than 40 percent of the diploma mills operate in California, Hawaii, Washington and Florida, the report reveals that Washington D.C. has seen the sharpest increase among US states, rising from 19 to 33 mills over the past year.

As employers are getting hip to the trick and instituting broader processes for education verification, some of these diploma mills have gone so far as to create fake accreditation agencies to give the fake schools false verification.

Be sure your employment screening service has a thorough education verification process in place, so you can be sure your candidates have the credentials and educational background they claim to have.

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Top 5 Ways Job Applicants Lie on a Resumé

If you think job applicants don’t fudge their resumés, you’re wrong. Despite how easy it is to check references and conduct a social media background check on sites like LinkedIn to find discrepancies in dates and responsibilities, many applicants still rely on lies and half-truths to boost their purported experience and expertise. According to a survey done by Forensic Psychology, 31 percent of those surveyed admitted to lying on a resumé, and the breakdown of lies is as follows:

1.      Salary. Twenty-seven percent of those surveyed said they boosted their current and/or former salary figures in order to grab more dough at their new job. However, more employers are requesting to review a job applicant’s last W-2 statement as part of their employment screening process, so this lie could come back to haunt applicants.

2.      Credentials. Twelve percent said they lied about their education, whether falsifying degrees earned or where they went to school. A professional pre-employment background check should catch this lie easily.

3.      Job performance. Fifteen percent said they’d embellished details of their professional accomplishments.

4.      Job responsibilities. Nineteen percent said they’d stretched the truth on what responsibilities they’d had, whether it was how many people they’d managed or what role they played in a group project or company success.

5.      Job skills. This one is perhaps the riskiest lie of all, but 17 percent said they’d fudged the skills they have in order to get a job requiring that skill.

Employers should keep these possible lies in mind when reviewing job applicant resumés and conducting background checks.


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Does your company have a recommendation policy for social media sites?

Many employers have a policy in place that deals with the kind of professional recommendations or references that employees are allowed to give for co-workers, vendors or former colleagues. But are you aware of the recommendations and references your employees are giving each other, your products and even your company on social media sites?

Professional social media sites like LinkedIn make it easy for those who use the site to post recommendations on the profile pages of their colleagues and vendors. The question is, could any of these online unsanctioned references cause your company any legal troubles down the line? Are you sure all employees are following Federal Trace Commission guidelines on the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising? For instance, are they disclosing their affiliation with a company while endorsing its products? If they’re endorsing a product or company anonymously, you could be liable for their misstep in not following the FTC’s guidelines. 

Employers should consider taking several steps to avoid such troubles. Employers should amend their written social media policies or reference policies to address unauthorized employee recommendations and references on social media sites. This might include the banning of such recommendations and references, although such stringent rules might be counterproductive to those who are asked to promote their business through social media outlets. Whatever you decide, make sure the new policy is distributed to every employee and spelled out so they know exactly what is and is not acceptable.

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A policy of performing background checks is useless unless it’s followed

Colleges large and small continue to be rocked by news of former and current coaches and teachers molesting the children under their care. Penn State University, Syracuse University, and now The Citadel in Charleston all have made headlines in recent weeks when charges were brought against their former or current staff members. Last week the case against former high school tennis coach Louis “Skip” ReVille of Charleston, charged initially with molesting several boys, was widened to The Citadel, where ReVille supervised boys in a summer tennis camp. One former camper has accused ReVille of showing boys pornography and performing sexual acts in their presence.

Perhaps the scariest announcement came from the Diocese of Charleston, which hired ReVille in 2008 to coach tennis at Bishop England High School. The diocese recently admitted that although they’ve had a policy in place since 2003 requiring all employees and volunteers who work with children to undergo a background check, no such check was performed on ReVille before he was hired.

The story makes clear the point that it is not enough to merely have a background check policy in place, you must follow through and perform said background checks, including a look at someone’s criminal record and searching for them in sex offender registries — every single time, no exceptions. A policy is just a useless piece of paper if it isn’t followed. And there is much more than legal trouble at stake.

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California latest state to say pre-employment credit checks not OK in most cases

California has become the latest state to ban credit checks during the pre-employment screening process, a move that proponents say will help those down on their luck get jobs based on their merit without having to account for their recent hard times.

Exceptions to the new rule, put forth in Assembly Bill 22 by Assemblyman Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, include jobs in the state’s Department of Justice and law enforcement, managerial positions, and those that control $10,000 or more during their workday. Also, employers can still conduct background checks of prospective hires.

California joins Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon and Washington as states that have imposed pre-employment credit check bans. Similar legislation has been proposed or is pending in 28 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Several business groups are opposed to the new law, saying it makes employers vulnerable to theft and fraud from their own employees. But those in favor of the law say credit checks unfairly cull candidates who are fully qualified but whose credit scores were damaged by layoffs, foreclosures and other financial hardships.

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Institute checks and balances to lessen risk of internal fraud

The higher up the ladder, the farther someone has to fall — and the more damage they can do on the way down. When employers consider using some type of employment screening process, it is often targeted toward prospective employees in lower-level jobs, where the fear of a criminal record or a history of drug use might be at play. But executives in higher-level positions can have just as many skeletons in their closet, and they are often given the keys to the company’s assets on a far greater scale than those in the mail room.

The threat of high-level executives committing fraud is a real one, and it’s something that should be considered and checked out before anyone is given a contract or job offer. There are a few checks and balances your company should employ, to alleviate your risk of an employee committing fraud.

1. Create a culture that instills ethical business practices and honesty on every level. No one should be — or be perceived to be — above or beyond these rules.
2. Do your homework during the hiring process by conducting a thorough background check on all employees at every level. Again, nobody should be exempt from this process.
3. Have an airtight system of internal checks and balances in place to be able to detect fraud at its earliest point and stop it in its tracks. For example, business processes like recording sales, billing customers, collecting customer payments and updating customer accounts should be divided between several people. That way someone is sure to come across any differences in account amounts or information

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Majority of retailers surveyed conduct background checks

A recent survey by the National Retail Federation has found that nearly all of the country’s leading department stores, grocery stores, large drug stores, discount stores and restaurants surveyed — a whopping 96.6 percent — use some form of background screening during the application, hiring and employment process.

This includes pre-employment screening on senior executives, store associates, and particularly those in customer service. The survey also showed that retailers are concerned over potentially new Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines that would “Ban the Box” – a term referring to the box asking about criminal history seen on most application forms – and prevent businesses from asking job applicants about their criminal history during the application and pre-employment process. Twenty-eight cities and counties across the country have “banned the box,” no longer asking potential employees whether they have any felony convictions.

The survey also found retailers conduct post-employment screening at a high rate on store associates, store management, and distribution center employees. The most common type of background check is the criminal history check, followed by the Social Security Number trace, and a check of the applicant’s sex offender status.

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