Don’t be bamboozled by resume fraud

fired a state drug lab analyst who did not have the chemistry degree her resume claimed. The department says that she underwent a pre-employment background screening, but the falsification was not caught. Which begs the question, if a background check doesn’t turn up anything, how can you be sure that the people you hire have the qualifications you require? That may be the wrong question to ask. Instead, we need to consider what it means when a company or organization says they’re going to run a background check. 1) We’re going to do this all ourselves. It’s easy to miss errors and intentional falsehoods when busy managers are required to do all the digging on their own. Sometimes, when a business is going to do a background check on a potential employee, they really just mean that they’re going to do a reference check and perhaps check for a criminal history. Resume fraud can be avoided if you have the right tools, which are not always at a manager’s disposal. 2) We’re going to use an instant screening website.  Using an online service to receive an instant report may turn up some information, but it is possible the service will not catch everything. Things such as education and experience may be overlooked because it’s a computer doing the work and not a person. In addition, there are many different types of checks that could have been done through one of these services, such as a credit check or criminal history report, which would not have revealed the education flub. 3) We’re going to hire a background screening service to make sure we’ve got an accurate picture of your past. If the organization had hired a reputable pre-employment background screening service, it’s likely that the education error would have been caught. An employment verification service takes care not to run just basic checks, but to dig into the contents of a candidate’s history as well. Hiring the right people can make or break your business, and it’s important that applicants are thoroughly screened so you can make the best hiring decisions. To learn more about Mind Your Business’ pre-employment screening services, send us a message!]]>