Background Checks: Not only for criminal behavior but could also serve as a great lie detector

CHICAGO - May 12, 2014 - PRLog -- Let’s face it, ever since the recession started the economy is slow to push forward and many people are still feeling the effects. Statistics show the unemployment rates are dropping and things are looking good, but we still need to understand that there are 91 million people without jobs (The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/01/30/are-there-91-million-americans-on-the-sidelines-looking-for-work/)). That is nearly 1/3 of Americans without jobs.

Those people are all not comfy sitting back and taking it easy, they are out there trying to find work anywhere they can. Let’s take this mindset and put it into a perspective.

We have Jim who has been unemployed for 3 years with a college degree and a small family. He goes to job fairs, spends 40 hours a week online sending out resumes and applying for any job that he can qualify for. His benefits are now gone and his wife is working a part time job at the local fast food restaurant.

In addition, we can see that Jim is not a bad guy or even a lazy person; he just lost his job and for one reason or another cannot find a company willing to hire him. Who knows, maybe they see the college degree and automatically put him as overqualified or assume that he will want a high wage. Jim is now a desperate person. He needs to get a job. He has to provide for his family. Jim will do anything. So Jim finds himself creating new resumes (embellishing just a bit on them) to match the requirements on the job posting.

These embellishments are not really harmful right? In Jim’s case we can feel sorry for him but as a company he might lead up to be a bad hire. The U.S. Department of Labor currently estimates that the average cost of a bad hiring decision can equal 30% (http://www.hr.com/en/app/blog/2012/03/who-are-you-really-...) of the individual’s first-year potential earnings. That means a single bad hire with an annual income of $50,000 can equal a potential $15,000 loss for the employer. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, feels this pain. He once estimated (http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-hsieh-making-the-righ...) that his own bad hires have cost the company well over $100 million. (That’s part of the reason he now offers new hires a $2000 bonus to quit after their first week if they don’t like the job.)

These are some very big numbers and to a small company it can be devastating. This is also not calculating in how much money it will cost your company if another worker gets hurt because you did not perform a background check and hired a person who is not qualified to be in that specific position.

Most Common Resume Lies

According to Forbes.com, some of the most common resume concerns can be found within:

Education
Employment dates
Job titles
Technical skills

These are the same resume areas that, if you skim through them, can cause problems.

Most companies do offer services that will qualify a candidate and will check all references before submitting the results to you. This can save you time and money and now the liability is placed on the background checking company and not yours. Kentech knows that there has been bad publicity on background checking companies lately, but these companies try and cut corners and put your company at risk.

We suggest that when you search for a background company you need to answer the following questions:

Are they reputable? Do not be deceived by a website.
Do they have employees that verify backgrounds or are the candidate’s name just ran through a database and pulling up any prospect that meets names or birthdates?
Are they willing to give you a walkthrough of their process and show you live demos?
Run a test background check and then run the same check through your prospect and see if the results are the same, did you receive more information?

So whether you go with KENTECH as your background checking provider (http://www.ekentech.com/) or another service provider, this service is becoming an important detail in the hiring process. Will you add it or just throw the dice and risk it?