In the interest of safety, more companies are doing criminal background checks on new hires
Gwen McNamara, Assistant Editor
You’ve perfected your resume, practiced for the job interview and found the ultimate power suit — think that’s enough to get hired?
Think again.
Today, citing security concerns and worries about litigation, more employers are turning to background checks to make sure potential hires are up to snuff.
According to a January 2004 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, a national human resources organization based in Alexandria, Va., 80 percent of human resource professionals say they conduct criminal background checks to screen potential employees, an increase of 29 percent from 1996.
Thirty-five percent also said they conduct credit checks to screen potential employees, an increase of 16 percent from 1996. Overall, 82 percent of human resource professionals report their organizations investigate the background of potential employees, up from 66 percent in 1996.
"More than 70,000 checks are performed on a daily basis nationwide," said Melissa Tenzer, president of Careers USA, a temporary and permanent staffing agency in Plainsboro. "More companies are looking to reduce staff violence and the risk of hiring someone who could be working in an exposed position.
"And it’s not just for CEOs or CFOs anymore," she continued. "The insurance industry, pharmaceuticals, accounting positions — it’s all on the rise."
Locally, professionals in a wide range of business categories — everything from pharmaceuticals, hotel and health care to technology and manufacturing — report their businesses conduct background checks.
"Since 9/11, people are more conscious of the employees they hire," said Roger Kadash, chairman of the Middlesex Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Human Resources Council and safety and environmental manager at Schweitzer-Mauduit, a producer of premium specialty paper for the tobacco industry in Spotswood. "People are more suspicious today and rightly so."
Cases like that of Charles Cullen, the former registered nurse who admitted killing dozens of patients with lethal doses of medication after bouncing from hospital to hospital in New Jersey and Pennsylvania during his 16-year career, serve as a reminder that you can’t necessarily take a potential employee’s resume at face value or trust the information given from a past employer.
"We do checks because it’s difficult to get any information beyond dates and positions when calling previous employers," said Andrea Sabatino, director of human resources at the Doral Forrestal Conference Center and Spa in Plainsboro, which just started conducting criminal background checks for the positions of general manager, general cashier, controller and sales. "We’ve always done checks of employment history and motor vehicle history for all employees — this just gives us an added level of security."
Background on background checks
So what exactly does a background check entail and what does it mean if you’re looking for a job?
There are two basic types of background checks — criminal background checks and credit checks — both of which are regulated by the Fair Credit and Reporting Act and federal civil rights laws.
Information on past employment, education history, driving record, criminal convictions and credit history are typically obtained.
With some professions — substitute teachers, airport screeners, businesses that handle or transport hazardous materials — such checks are required by federal or state agency regulations. If not, it’s up to the individual company or business.
Before conducting a background check, an employer must get the expressed written consent of the applicant in advance. That consent must also indicate under what circumstances the employer may retract or amend the offer of employment, and the information may not be obtained until after a conditional offer of employment is made.
Once the offer is extended and the signed release obtained, companies typically will contract with a third party to conduct the check. Fees range from about $35 for a motor vehicle report to several hundred dollars for more extensive employment, education, criminal and credit reports.
"The cost of these background checks may be prohibitive to some employers, but it quickly is becoming the cost of doing business," said Charlotte Anderson, of Amethyst and Iris, an organizational design and talent development firm in Hillsborough, and president of the Central New Jersey chapter of SHRM.
Once an employer has the background check information in hand, they have quite a bit of latitude in determining a candidate’s suitability for the job, but they need to identify a "business-related reason" why the candidate is no longer appropriate, she said. The simple existence of a criminal history or poor credit is not sufficient for retracting an offer.
"A bank can refuse to hire a convicted embezzler, or a truck company can turn away a drunk driver," said Louis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute in Montgomery. "But simply having a criminal record shouldn’t disqualify you."
The candidate is also required to have access to the reports received and must be given the chance to refute any information they disagree with.
"The typical selection process for any candidate new to an organization involves resume review, a series of interviews and reference checking," Ms. Anderson said. "All of these have useful components, but not one is really valid or reliable — everyone does their best in an interview, but most of us can tell what the ‘right’ answer is to most questions and none of us gives names of references who are going to say something negative.
"The need for more objective, theoretically accurate, information is critical for making a good selection," she continued. "One source of that information is the background check."
Better than a reference
But are background checks really a good idea, or are they more trouble than they’re worth?
Employers argue background checks are necessary since it is exceedingly difficult to get accurate reference information from former employers.
"Of greatest concern is the growing reluctance of employers to provide employment reference information of much value or detail," Ms. Anderson said. "The direct and indirect costs of litigation have made most employers gun shy of providing any negative information about former employees at the risk of being sued for slander or defamation.
"The flip side of this is the risk of being charged with fraudulent misrepresentation if an employer fails to provide truthful information about an employee’s past behavior which could put future employers at risk," she continued.
But background checks are only useful if the information gathered is used wisely, Mr. Maltby said.
"Employers are making much more use of background checks today than ever before — and that’s not necessarily a bad idea," he said. "If someone’s looking to hire someone to drive an 18-wheeler, I’d like them to make sure that person has no history of DUI convictions.
"The problem is employers don’t always think very carefully before collecting the background information and that’s where problems arise," he continued. "Employers use criminal records checks and think they are keeping hardcore felons out of the workforce, but there are 46 million people out there with criminal records, mostly for minor crimes. Will all of them pose a threat? Maybe not, but it’s difficult to ignore the information once you collect it."
Thomas B. Lewis, of the employment law group at Stark & Stark in Lawrence, agrees.
"I steer clients away from looking at financial information," he said. "There are lots of reasons someone could be badly in debt — college expenses, taking on a family problem — so it’s unfair to make assumptions. I also recommend a narrow search. The more information you get, the harder it is to ignore."
And even though having a criminal record is not supposed to put a person’s opportunities in jeopardy, employers have pretty wide latitude if the potential hire will be in the public eye.
"As a general rule you can’t not hire someone just because they have a criminal record, but you can if character or the company’s reputation comes into play," said John Sarno, executive director of the Employer’s Association of New Jersey. "There are positions where the crime may have nothing to do with the job, and you can still not hire someone.
"For example, you could be looking to hire a CEO who, after a check, you find was convicted of using cocaine years ago," he continued. "The company is free to hire that person and write off the crime as youthful indiscretion, or you can also say no because the character of the person at that level is directly related to the reputation of the company."
It’s also important employers be consistent in how they apply background checks, said Richard Cino, member of the Middlesex Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Human Resources Council and lawyer with Jackson Lewis, LLP, a law firm in Morristown that represents employers in labor and employment matters.
"It’s important if an employer does checks to do them consistently, across the board for a position or type of job," he said. "You have to have a business justification for who you want to run the check on. You don’t want to do it in a discriminatory manner, just check one individual and no one else."
Mr. Maltby cautions employers not to become too reliant on background checks.
"What could happen is that human resource professionals lose their good judgement and look for people with no blemishes instead of the quality employee," he said. "We don’t want a situation where an incompetent Boy Scout has no problem getting a job, but a competent professional with one mistake cannot."
Creating a system for weighing background information can help employers stay out of trouble, Mr. Sarno says.
"If a check is necessary and criminal information is found, the business should consider factors such as how close the crime is to time of hire and the type of crime," he said. "Violence with a weapon two years ago is different than being arrested at 18 for smoking pot."
Still, Mr. Lewis says it’s likely the use of background checks will be tested in the courts.
"There are not too many cases coming down the pipeline to interpret the Fair Credit and Reporting Act," he said. "I think that’s something we’ll see happening in the next year or two."
Anything for the job
But if input from area human resource professionals is any indication, it appears potential hires don’t have many concerns about signing off on a background check.
"We’ve been doing background checks for three years now and never had anyone refuse to sign off," said Linda Forbes, head of human resources at Avebe America Inc., a global starch company in Plainsboro. "So far we’ve been lucky enough not to even have to deal with finding any negative information."
"We use background checks on all new hires," added Ruth Bell, director of administration and manager of the human resources department at Archi-Tech Systems in Ewing, which provides business solutions tools to the pharmaceutical industry. "And we’ve not yet had anyone complain about it."
"(Background checks are) something we’ve been doing for a long time and is now pretty standard across many industries," said Allen Chilson, at Sarnoff Corp. in West Windsor. "Often I find if people know a check will be performed, they won’t put inaccurate information on an application."
If anything, applicants that haven’t encountered a check before are a bit leery, but eventually comply because they have to in order to be considered for the job, Ms. Tenzer said.
"Not signing off can indicate you’ve got something to hide," she said. "I recently had an experienced administrative assistant apply for a job at a local insurance agency. She was required to get a 10-panel drug test and sign off on a background check. She got the job and came back clean, but was very hesitant at first. She’d never experienced that before."
"If you don’t like the idea that someone won’t believe you are who you are at face value, you are now out of luck," added Mr. Cino. "Today’s society is much more skeptical. The application and interview process give employers little to go on, they are essentially wholeheartedly trusting the potential employee. Employers want to be able to confirm what they’re being told is accurate."
Job sleuths gaining ground
Regardless of your opinion on whether background checks are good or bad, one thing is clear — the background checking industry is growing by leaps and bounds.
Large companies like Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP) that have traditionally offered a wide range of employer services are now getting into the game, along with specialized companies like ChoicePoint, Criminal Background and American Background.
A simple Google search on background check companies alone yielded more than 3 million hits.
"These days the percentage of large corporations, those with 10,000 or more employees, conducting some form of proactive employee screening is high and we’re starting to see growth in the market as it gets down to mid-size and smaller businesses," said Dave Wirta, executive vice president of sales and marketing for First Advantage Company, a background check and screening company with client services offices in Ewing.
"There are a lot of companies out there and a lot of providers that range from a former law enforcement person with a small investigative company to larger corporations such as First Advantage," he continued. "What we’ve been seeing in the last several years is rapid consolidation of the marketplace. It’s harder for smaller companies to keep pace."
Mr. Wirta believes the background checking industry will only get stronger.
"The need will always be there," he said. "Employment history and education are the most frequently embellished claims an applicant makes, with a rate of embellishment or falsification between 15 and 40 percent."
According to a recent study by the executive search firm Christian & Timbers, in New York, after researching the resumes of 500 corporate executives, they discovered 23 percent lied about their accomplishments.
Forty-four percent embellished their job descriptions, 48 percent inflated their salary, 52 percent enhanced their academic history, 60 percent increased the size of the team they managed and 64 percent lied about their accomplishments. The number one resume lie — 71 percent of executives misrepresented the number of years they’d worked at their jobs.
"Our criminal hit rate nationally is 5 to 7 percent," Mr. Wirta said. "That may sound like a small number, but if you consider you’re an employer with 10,000 or more employees that generally has a 20 percent turnover rate, it means you’re looking to hire 2,000 people next year, so it’s reasonable to expect you could hire 100 to 140 convicted criminals. That’s a huge risk."
Database technology and the Internet help background check companies gather information more efficiently, he said.
"Court records, criminal records in a lot of cases are stored electronically, making the search process a lot quicker," said Mr. Wirta. Turnaround for reports can be as quick as 24 to 48 hours, depending on what is being looked for.
The Internet also provides a platform for consumers who’d like to do some snooping on their own. First Advantage offers its own consumer service through www.USSearch.com, where the average Joe can search for lost friends, conduct background searches, go through court records or screen contractors and nannies for between $25 and more than $100 depending on the service.
But he and others like Mr. Maltby caution that not all sites are reputable. They recommend checking out how much the sites charge and how much personal information is required to participate.