The Dark Side of Background Screening

One of the joys of attending a conference such as the recent SHRM Talent & Staffing Management conference in San Diego, is that you learn so much. New innovative thoughts – Grand expanded ideas – New Announcements – and my personal favorite – New companies. That is what happened at this conference, I had a chance to speak to David Nadell of the Social Intelligence. This new company indicates that with using Social Media channels for hiring is putting the employer at huge risks in discrimination, …. but what made my mind whirl is the thought of what kind of stuff you going to find out about this candidate if you dig just a little deeper? Dig into the web of social media and their fan pages, personal pages, chat rooms, networking accounts and so much more. How thorough are the screening companies when it comes to positions that really are about a persons’ character as much as their experience.

Recently, HRExaminer’s John Sumser published a report not only on Social Intelligence but about this whole scary Dark-side of background checks. http://www.hrexaminer.com/social-intelligence. He states “…disconfirming evidence in a variety of ways. They screen pictures, evaluate various alternative resumes, monitor chat rooms and dig deeply into those thousand of islands of social media.”

Yikes – this is a scary thing to consider, but when you are in the financial services, Health services, educational services – wow, we better be sure that the candidate’s life is as clean and pristine as they say it is. Unfortunately, now that there is social media, there is a way to dig even deeper, setting up a Consumer Reporting Agency to cover so many of these “if’s, and’s and but’s” so that an employers can be confident that they have truly served their consumers with due diligence and respect.

Recently, I stumbled on another new company that will help to eliminate this on the consumer side – Reputation Defender; The online reputation management leader. It is all about image control. However, does this help those people that are trying hard to hide what their true life is all about – sheesh, just makes me think again “The Dark Side”.

BUT I have the answer for everyone, that would unfortunately put both of these companies out of business – 1/ be a good citizen 2/ have a good conscience 3/ believe that anything you do selfishly, will effect someone negatively 4/ remember those values and morals hopefully taught to you in your youth 5/ stay on the clean side of the law 6/ only do things that will make your mother proud.

Since I don’t have much faith that this will truly happen, both of the companies will be kept very busy for a very long time.

Who's job is PR anyway?

It is amazing how one comment can get you thinking about something that you do naturally and for totally different reasons. You have no idea that the end result could very well be as valuable as why you do it in the first place. Confused yet?

As I was attending the recent SHRM Talent & Staffing Management conference in San Diego, a follower on Twitter commented “Are you in PR at HRmarketer.com? because I thought you were in Sales.” I thought that was an interesting comment because “who’s job is PR anyway”.

I like to support and assist the clients/members of HRmarketer by promoting their press releases and content news beyond the HR VendorNews site that we have. I also look beyond other industry news and push that out as well. Isn’t that what Social Media is all about? I may be the VP of Sales, and a dedicated and enthusiastic member of the HRmarketer team, but I am also proud and enthusiastic of my client’s news. Should that kind of promotion be left to my PR team? Do I allow them to decide what is valuable news? What about my opinion?

In a company of our size, it is not very difficult to encourage the full team to take up the thrilling ride of social media, and to do it in a way that gives the collective message of the company. AND it should be the job of the sales team, who works with, and understands the differential aspects of their clients to act as a PR or voice for our clients.

I know that there are some truly difficult decisions made by all companies nowadays (wow that sounds old fashioned), but especially large companies, to decide if the employees of the company should be using social media to promote their company. This is very hard to “police” what message a company wants to promote, and without guidelines and boundaries, this can be difficult to manage. That is why we now hear of titles like - "Social Media Guru", "Online Influencer" and Laurie Reuttimann's new title with StarrTincup - Principal HR and Social Media Strategist (great title by the way).

Do you agree with me? Is PR a job that should be kept in a silo? Should sales take responsibility for this kind of promotion?

I was pleased that David made this comment to me, because it tells me (and luckily my CEO heard it too) that I am doing a damn fine job for my clients and HRmarketer.com.

Step on the Stage Folks!

Those of you who read our blog know we are fans of Laurie Ruettimann, a former HR professional who wrote the seminal Human Resources Blog: Punk Rock HR.

Laurie has a new job.


Here is a blog from the website TLNT outlining the details:

Does Move of Well-Known HR Blogger Signal a Trend, or Something Else?

The article provides some encouraging news for HR Vendors:

“According to Bret Starr, a partner at Starr Tincup, there is “a tectonic shift, a major change taking place in the HR space.” He says that the HR market (for goods and services) is maturing at a rapid pace and becoming more of a mainstream market where defending and building brands is the critical element for HR vendors rather than just simply looking to gain market share.”

Step right up folks! It looks like you might be taking center stage! We have all been working on developing our brands, and using social media tools, and now we have become “cutting edge” - way ahead of our competitors who are not using these skills!

And, in the two-birds-with-one-stone department, I have even more good news from that article:

“Just this week, a new study by SHRM found that found that more than half of human resource professionals (56 percent) now use social networking websites to source potential job candidates, a significant increase from the 34 percent who said they did so back in 2008. In addition, one-fifth of organizations (20 percent) that do not use social networking sites say they plan to use them in the future.”

The information you have learned about social media, branding, and other online marketing skills that has helped you become so “cutting edge” may help you in another potentially lucrative way with your HR clients! That same information can be used to help educate your HR clients about the strategic use of social media. This helps you develop credibility with your clients and develop a stronger customer relationship bond with them. Win-win!

Reach out to your clients as an “expert” on social media’s use in HR. Trust me; you know far more about this stuff than most of your clients. The HR department folk will need your help, and be grateful as you give them helpful advice about all you have learned about the world of social media!

Maybe some of you are already doing this? I am curious; let me know if you have had this conversation with your clients.

What You Don't Know CAN Hurt You!

As unemployment stagnates, even though the economy is starting to pick up, there has been something of a backlash from discarded employees. Apparently, unemployed candidates are not considered to be viable candidates – at least according to rumors I’ve heard and from various recruitment blogs and other on-line sources.

It has always been the case that candidates who aren’t working are at a disadvantage. The hiring manager often believes the unemployed candidate’s work-skills are lagging.

Thinking this isn’t against the law, or is it?

Well, this “dirty” little secret is out; the unemployed masses have caught on to this practice, according to an article in the April 2011 issue of - Treasury & Risk:

“The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s interest suggests companies should tread carefully. While there’s no law that prohibits employers from refusing to consider job applicants who are unemployed, the EEOC is considering whether the practice discriminates by having a “disparate impact” on certain groups. At an EEOC hearing in February, witnesses argued that excluding the unemployed could have an outsized effect on groups including blacks, Hispanics, women, older workers and the disabled.”

Disparate hiring does not have to be shown to be intentionally discriminatory. In December, the EEOC filed a lawsuit against Kaplan Higher Education, charging that its use of credit checks discriminated against black applicants. This might be of interest to background checking vendors.

I am curious to hear from any recruiters out there, have you been asked to screen out unemployed candidates? Maybe a conversation with your clients could save a lawsuit?

Now Available! HR Buyers’ Behavior: What to Expect in 2011

Our annual Trends in HR Marketing: HR Buyers’ Behavior - What to Expect in 2011 is here and available for download from our HRmarketer Content Library. No registration required!

Our fifth annual survey reveals some positive news for HR suppliers, as well as the job market as a whole in 2011. Fifty percent of HR professionals report their company will hire more staff in 2011. This statistic mirrors a Business Roundtable survey, also released last week, stating that 52% of top CEOs plan to increase hiring in the next six months.

The key trends outlined in our HR Buyer Report reveal much about the online HR buying process. As we’ve reported for several years now, having a strong online presence continues to be of great importance for HR suppliers to be found and recognized by HR buyers. A few additional highlights include:

• As a group, HR buyers plan on increasing their budgets by 20% or more in 2011 for Recruitment, Training & Education, Performance Management, Management & Leadership Development, Assessment & Selection and Background Checks.
• LinkedIn is far and away the most popular social networking service among HR decision makers with nearly 95% using it for business purposes. However, this audience’s Twitter use was up 50% over last year.
• Sixty-nine percent of HR buyers are somewhat to highly optimistic about the economy and think that business is starting to improve in 2011.

In this slow economic recovery, it’s encouraging to see hiring on the rise increased optimism for 2011.

Seventy percent of survey respondents were executive management across a variety of industries and 50% were from companies with 100-1000 employees.

Download the full report directly here for a great look into the perspectives and attitudes of HR buyers and how you can leverage these insights in your Human Capital Business.

Contact us with questions or comments. We'd love to hear from you. And feel free to share the report via twitter, facebook, etc.