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…

California legislature is dangerously close to passing a law that changes the use of pre employment credit reports by employers. 

The current law allows for the usage if it is substantially job related.  Under the reason of substantially job related, the current reasons are as follows:

• The position is a highly compensated or managerial one
• The position is one in which there is access to customer or employee personal or financial information.
• The position involves fiduciary responsibility or the handling or managing of money or requires travel.

The newly proposed law would eliminate the second two reasons, thus prohibiting an employer from pulling consumer credit reports for these types of positions.  We urge you to contact your state senator if you have business, employees or potential applicants in the State of California.  Below is a link to do so:

http://napbs.com/members_rep_letters.php

TJX Companies, the mammoth US retailer whose substandard security led to the world’s biggest credit card heist, has fired an employee after he left posts in an online forum that made disturbing claims about security practices at the store where he worked.

Read more…

It seems everybody lately has had some type of credit problem. Whether it is because of a predatory lender, a law suit or you have just been unable to pay your bills you may find yourself subject to judgment by a future employer.

Credit reports have long been a part of background checks, especially when a potential employee may be handling money. So, what do employers look for on your credit report? You may have seen the commercials on TV with the goofy kid singing about his terrible credit report, well it isn’t quite that simple. Read more…

Background checks, the phrase brings with it a connotation of mystery. Many people aren’t even aware of what a background check entails. Many people are worried, wrongly I might add, about an invasion of privacy. Why do I, as an employer, get to know about your background? Well, there are many reasons but I would say that the most compelling among them is because I do not want to lose my business! Is it fair to judge someone based on their past performance? In many instances I would say yes! How come I get to pick and choose who works for my company? Because, it is my business! I owe my employees a safe workplace. I owe my family a secure future.

Read more…

Do you know the I-9 Status of your employees? How about their visa standing? Read more…

Hi Folks!
I initially started writing the article below to make into an e-book. Well as things progressed and I started getting more and more in-depth, I thought it might be a good article for my blog. As you may or may not know I work for an employment screening company and they have given me their blessing to go ahead and publish articles that discuss how to conduct free background checks. Read more…

Prompted by an article written by “The Lisa” over at Bruce Clay’s blog entitled “Your Boss Is Not Your Friend”. I wanted to address the issue of conducting social media background checks. In my opinion they do not comply with the FCRA, the governing document of employment screening within the United States. So what do we do if we happen to come across some potentially damaging information about a potential employee, ignore it? What if you were to find out that your employee was secretly planting false information about you, your company or its executives online? If that employee is already working for you then I think you may have grounds for dismissal, but if you are thinking of hiring them can you use this information per the FCRA in a hiring decision? More and more companies are doing so. People have to realize that everything you publish to the interent is being crawled by search engine spiders. That information is in the public domain and usually rather easily accesible. Posting your political views, rants about your job or pictures of you cutting loose on the weekend may not be using your best judgement.

Litigation continues to be a concern for the consumer reporting industry. Such issues as reasonable procedures, willful or negligent violations, identity theft and others have made monitoring potential litigation more critical than ever. You won’t want to miss this opportunity to become educated on the latest litigation trends.

Jean Noonan, Partner with Hudson Cook and formerly with the Federal Trade Commission in the Bureau of Consumer Protection will discuss recent trends in consumer credit litigation, and its impact on creditors and others in the consumer reporting industry.

Discussion will include the latest developments in the following areas:

Reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy

Willful and negligent violations as a result of reliance on counsel

Class action litigation

Date: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. EDT
Speaker: Jean Noonan, Partner with Hudson Cook, LLP
Moderator: Eric J. Ellman, Vice President and Counsel of State Government and Federal Regulatory Affairs
Cost: $65 How to Comply with the FCRA Subscribers
$85 CDIA Members
$125 Non-Members & Data Furnishers/Users

For More Info About The CDIA Training Go Here

In our last installment we discussed how to obtain motor vehicle records. Today I will discuss how to verify someones employment. Just so you know this is not a way to find out where someone is employed that is another can of worms completely. We will discuss how to determine if someone worked at a particular company and if they have a good work record.

First of all you will need a signed release to do these checks. If you are doing a background check on a prospective employees then the FCRA still applies as well as your state and local laws.

If the person you are doing the check on has filled out an application or has sent you a resume’ then you will have to look in the section that lists their previous employment. Most times they will list the address, phone number and their supervisor. You will want to call the company and try to get a hold of the supervisor. This way you can talk to the person that was directly responsible for that persons work.

A typical call may go something like this:

ABC Company: Hello ABC Company may I help you?
You: Yes may I speak to John Smith in the widget department?
ABC: One moment please.
ABC: Hi this is John Smith how may I help you?
You: Yes John, my name is Harry Mann, I have a gentleman by the name of (whatever the subjects name is) and he is applying for a job with us. He listed you as a contact for his previous employment. Is it ok if I ask you a couple of questions?
ABC: Sure go ahead!
You: (Subjects name) says that he was a widget wrangler with your company is that true?
ABC: Why yes it is!
You: He also states that you were his supervisor?
ABC: Yes, yes I was!
You: Was he a good worker for you then?
ABC: Yep, he was pretty good.
You: Pretty good? Were there any problems?
ABC: No not really.
You: Was he ever late?
ABC: Yes sometimes he was.
You: Well, I know how that goes. I had a guy that was always late and he smelled too.
ABC: Oh yeah, well let me tell you about (subject).

Now all calls may not go like that, but my point is once you start talking to these people be a little personable. It will get you far more information.
Some companies are huge and you will never get through to the supervisor or they may have a policy that they do not give out any information. Almost always though you can at least get dates of employment, salary and if they eligible for re-hire.

If you are willing to spend a little money you can use a service called The Work Number. They have an automated system that can verify someones previous employment. It’s a pretty nifty little tool. If you have any questions that I left unanswered feel free to leave them in the comments section. I will try and answer as many as I can.

In our next article I will cover the basics of verifying someones education. Hope to see you then!