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Employee Screening Keeps the Liars Out of Your Company


Employee Screening Keeps the Liars Out of Your Company

Make a thorough background check part of your recruitment strategy to save your firm from a high-risk hire

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We spend more time and resources deciding on the purchase of a new photocopier than we do qualifying a new employee. We may interview photocopy vendors, compare features and meet to decide which one will produce the best results for the least cost. We’ll get three quotes, negotiate the best maintenance agreement in the hope of getting the best bang for our buck until it falls apart or dies.

On the contrary, we spend time and money on head hunters or advertising for a job candidate, to then conduct one telephone interview followed by a face-face meeting with the candidate. We short list, do a couple of quick reference checks and extend a warm welcome aboard.

Once on board, we pay them about four times more than the cost of a photocopier and give them instant responsibility for managing six times their salary in revenues. We grant them access to corporate assets worth 26 times their salary, all without having done a thorough background check.

A True Story of Deception

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I received a resume from a professional personnel agency in my search to hire a branch manager. The candidate’s resume addressed every criterion we sought and more.

He had his own website touting interviews on almost every national TV station in North America on various security topics and went as far as to display each broadcasting company’s logo on his personal site as evidence. He laid claim to earning a mitt full of meritorious medals visually displayed on his chest seen posing in a photo on his website. He claimed almost every designation achievable applicable our industry, including a Doctorate in Literature.

Surely, a man of his distinctions was worthy of an interview, if not for curiosity’s sake alone.

Lies Uncovered

A quick pre-interview Google search on him revealed:

  1. No reference was found on any of the TV stations regarding the interviews he claimed having with them.
  2. Every medal he claimed as having “earned” could have been purchased online for $24.95 including a letter of authenticity.
  3. Each professional designation that followed his name was also offered online for purchase.
  4. His Doctorate of Literature was acquired after years of study at a non-existent university in a non-existent country. Yes, that is correct: country.

Was I surprised? No. The thought certainly came to mind that entering into a time wasting interview with him might have been fun, but to what end?

Advantages of Employee Screening

Our five-year photocopier lease will end with a well-used photocopier that has served us well. A bad hire can cost us a warehouse full of them.

If pre-flight security screening requires that we pass through a metal detector, it is safe to assume that there are no guns on the plane. Similar logic indicates that:

  1. If a criminal background check is conducted on all your employees, it suggests that nobody in your place of employment has a criminal record and concludes that you support a safe working environment.
  2. If proof of education is a hiring requirement, then peers perceive each other to be adequately educated and qualified.
  3. If a candidate believes that since he has undergone a thorough interview and a comprehensive background check, then all employees have undergone the same and a general sense of corporate community of quality exists.

Counterfeit university diplomas and transcripts, altered criminal record checks, signed letters of recommendation, skilled trade certificates and false identification are easily acquired. You do not know for certain that the document you hold is real unless you validate the document and the institution in question.

In all my years, I have never witnessed nor heard tell of a candidate facing a penalty for providing false information at the time of an interview. So, what does a candidate have to lose by trying?

The sole purpose for submitting a resume is to get an interview. If an interview is granted, then the purpose during an interview will be to defend any false statements made on the resume.

Screening Tips

If you decide to conduct your own in-house background checks, here is a suggestion you may want to try. Where a candidate qualifies for a first interview, provide a list of items you want the candidate to bring to the interview:

  1. Three pieces of identification, one of which must have a picture.
  2. Copies of diplomas and transcripts to support the education they claim to have.
  3. Certificates of completion (or attendance) that most training programs provide.
  4. List of references with current contact information.

I have learned more from the excuses a candidate will come up with for falling short of this request than from their successful compliance to the request.