We’ve been decoding screening issues for larger businesses in our last few posts.
We learned that glancing at Joe Schmoe’s social media madness doesn’t qualify as a background check. And we outlined ways you can improve your hiring process.
We’ve stated that running a thorough background check is an absolute must before you hire a new employee. And we recommend hiring a reputable agency like us to set up an automated compliance tool or to conduct your checks for you. Active Screening has completed millions of background checks in our ten year history and we retain 97% of our clients. That’s how good we are. For a company our size, our products, services, investigators and innovators are unmatched in the screening industry.
But who is responsible for hiring us? Is it recruiters and headhunters who are actively seeking and recommending talent? Or is it the company’s themselves who are interested in learning more about a candidate? Let’s examine this issue with a case study that has been written about extensively, including in the SmartRecruiters Blog.
For several months in 2013, Rutgers University was raked through the coals of national media as a revolving door of Athletic Directors and coaches filed through its ranks. The issue was not just the alleged and recorded abuse by men’s basketball coach Mike Rice and appointed Athletic Director Julie Hermann, but the apparent lack of thorough vetting on either of these individuals. The consensus was this – whoever hired these two didn’t do due diligence in checking their backgrounds (but they certainly paid a small fortune).
The merry-go-round continued to spin when Rutgers hired supposed alumnus Eddie Jordan, who, hiring boards later discovered, didn’t graduate from Rutgers. All in all, it wasn’t a good year for Rutgers public profile.
What can we learn from this Rutgers epic fail? Several things… and they all tie into answering the question, “Who, in the screening process, is responsible for conducting background checks?”
Social media ‘checks’ don’t count. Read this to find out why.
You can’t trust candidates to tell you the truth. Once a lie is out there, it’s really hard to admit it. Take a look at this resume falsification fact sheet from www.statisticbrain.com. Wowza. So, if a candidate has lied on his/her resume, the fabrication will likely continue until someone verifies its accuracy. This starts with a recruiter, but if everyone lets this fib slip through the cracks, then everyone is to blame. In other words, if you use a recruiter who doesn’t run background checks, then you better make sure you do.
Background Checks Help You Find the Right Talent. Whether you’re a recruiter or a human resources expert, you don’t want your time wasted. We know you’re super busy and your time is precious. That’s why a background check is imperative. It’s not that it weeds out mismatched (or unsavory) applicants, it’s that it helps identity the right pool of people for jobs. So if Client A doesn’t get the first recommended position, you know exactly where to sell the talent next. Your homework – and the HR department’s – is done.
www.Should-I-Hire-This-Person-or-Not.com does not exist. As this post on HR.com points out, there isn’t a magic website that shows if a person has a clean record, is honest and a hard worker. So it’s up to both recruiters and businesses to do their homework. The trouble is that both of these entities have the same end game – get the candidate employed as quickly as possible. This fast-track thinking can be dangerous, though (ahem… Rutgers). If a bad hire joins the team and does something criminal, the company can be on the hook for a lawsuit (workplace safety is a big issue), or at the very least they have to deal with poor performance, low morale, workplace discord. That looks really bad for the recruiter, too.
The lesson is this. Everyone in the recruitment and hiring process is responsible for knowing that a background check has been run on an applicant, but who performs the check needs to be decided on by the parties involved. We recommend that companies take a closer look at their screening policies and develop a standardized procedure that is transparent to everyone involved.
Active Screening is here to help facilitate that conversation and procedure. We have customizable automated compliance tools that you can run in-house, or you can select from our roster of investigative solutions to suit your needs. Our representatives can answer any questions you have… don’t end up like Rutgers… contact us today.