Do you use social media sites such as Facebook or Myspace to conduct background checks. If so you might be violating Federal Law. To find out more and down load my free report “Social Media Employment Screening, what harm is it?”

More employers should be protected when telling the truth! I came across this news story which underscores the need for some basic protections for employers. Many states have shield laws which ostensibly give employers protections when revealing potentially derogatory information about former or current employees during an employment reference check. This protection applies so long as the inormation given is Job related, based upon credible evidence and Made without malice. Including an excerpt of your states law on the verification request can be helpful. 

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<a href=”http://www.indystar.com/article/20100103/NEWS14/1030391/Bringing-teacher-misconduct-to-light”>http://www.indystar.com/article/20100103/NEWS14/1030391/Bringing-teacher-misconduct-to-light</a>

The title of this post was almost “Screening Job Applicants In The Recession.” I’m done saying recession though so from now on, we are just dealing with a new economy. A new economy that is new all of the time. But that’s really beside the point.

If you’ve been lucky enough to do any hiring during the last six months, you know that applicant flow has been crazy. I’ve talked to colleagues who have seen almost 1,000 resumes for a single position and often times only advertising in a couple of sources. They found the task daunting because these companies are often smaller companies that don’t necessarily have an applicant tracking system (ATS).

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I was going to write about the “right” way to check references because I thought many people would object to my idea of the right type of reference check. You see, when I call past employers of a job candidate, I want to get the maximum amount of information they are willing to give to me. Some people feel it is intrusive and some employers won’t participate. So instead of saying “right” I am going to say “best” since this is the best way to get the maximum amount of information quickly without being unethical.

Here are my step by step instructions. The order is incredibly important so stick with it.

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Have you been through airport security lately? I have and it isn’t much fun. And if you fly regularly, you know the routine:

• Put everything you can into your bag
• Keep your boarding pass and ID out
• Take off your shoes
• Take out your laptop
• Empty your pockets
• Take off your belt
• Take off your jacket

Then do a quick prayer and march yourself through the metal detector. Hope nothing goes wrong and your through. Read more…

Russia, Iran , Syria. These places got nothin’ on your own IT department. That’s right, according to The National Association of State Chief Information Officers the majority of cyber attacks on a company’s computing infrastructure comes from within the companies own IT staff. You may remember Terry Childs the network engineer that locked out the City of San Francisco’s IT department from it’s own computer network. That one example got major media coverage but it happens a lot more than many would think at companies all over the country. Also consider corporate espionage, disgruntled employees, identity theft and employees just out to “have some fun”, it’s enough to give you shivers down your spine. Read more…

I was reading through some advice on how to improve your resume and make it stand out from the pack in this incredibly competitve new employment environment. I don’t particularly want to link to it because the advice that is decent is incredibly boring and the advice that is bad is practically unethical.

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If you have a smaller company or if you are a mid sized company who hasn’t seen the benefits of putting together a great employee screening process, you may be wondering about how to start the whole process. There are a lot of questions to be answered that you may be feeling uncomfortable with. For example, what is legal to check for? What should I be checking for? So here are ten steps to putting together an employee screening process:

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I realize that a limited number of times, I may be sarcastic in my posts. You may have not noticed this because it is hard to detect sarcasm on the net.

So you’ll just have to take my word that when I say that the Fair Credit Reporting Act is your friend, you’ll take me seriously this one time. Because I am telling you HR person and hiring managers scared of these initials (and I know who you are), the FCRA will bail you out in times of trouble. You just have to play by the rules.

Quick primer on why you need to know anything at all about FCRA: Read more…

“Everyone does it,” said one.

“I knew you wouldn’t consider me otherwise,” said another.

“Employers lie about the job, why should I be honest,” said yet another.

These are all explanations I’ve heard in reference to resume fraud. The most startling thing about resume fraud is that it must work because people continue to use it frequently. There have been several high profile cases and at least one worth mentioning (because it is one of my favorites):
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