by Nick Fishman

We are happy to announce that the clerk strike that we reported about yesterday in Santa Cruz County, California has been successfully resolved.

by Nick Fishman

We have just learned that the court clerks in Santa Cruz County, California have gone on strike. This will effectively block access to the criminal records index which can only be searched by a court clerk. If you require criminal background checks in this county, be prepared for delays. Hopefully, this issue can and will be resolved quickly.

by Nick Fishman

Okay. I owe the readers of this blog an apology for playing it safe and sitting on the sidelines on this one. Credit card titan Visa issued a press release on September 13th titled “Americans Unaware That Employers Can Legally Refuse to Hire Job Applicants With Low Credit Scores“ The release points out that many employers are making their hiring decisions based on a credit score. I strongly disagree with this statement. Our experience is that employers stay as far away from credit scores as they can. I wasn’t even sure if it was legal or permissible to use a credit score in the hiring decision so I took a week to discuss this topic with the folks at Experian and with some employment attorneys before snapping off an uneducated response. I have learned that while it is permissible, it is most likely ill-advised. The most common explanation for their opinions is the potential for a disparate impact on minorities. Not to mention that a bad credit score can occur for so many reasons unrelated to personal responsibility including divorce, critical healthcare issues, etc.

I did test the waters by responding to an ERE post that published the release going as far as calling out the folks at Visa for not doing their homework. I stand by this assertion. They should have clarified that employers are increasingly reviewing a credit report on prospective employees, not necessarily credit scores. That said, I think that the release is interesting. I just think Visa should have spent a bit more time fine tuning the information.

by Jason Morris

I was recently quoted in the New York Post! This article, The Prying Game was published in today’s edition.

by Nick Fishman

I found an article on NorthJersey.com about the importance of conducting a background check on new employees and I thought it would be a good idea to discuss criminal background checks in the state of New Jersey. Of course, I agree that it is a good practice to conduct background checks wherever you are located however, I believe that employers also need to know what type of information they can obtain.

In the state of New Jersey’s case, did you know that misdemeanor convictions are not made publicly available in the Upper Courts? Therefore a standard criminal background check in the Upper Court in this state will not include such convictions. You can still get felonies, but misdemeanors are not provided. Misdemeanors convictions are maintained in the municipal courts, but since there are so many of these courts, you would have to check all of them to identify any criminal records. Therefore, the only realistic way to research misdemeanor convictions is to know that they exist and in what court they were prosecuted.

This wouldn’t cause me to tell employers to abandon their screening practices when hiring in this state, it’s just important to have all the facts. I don’t know why the state has done this, but I strongly disagree with the policy. It makes the process that much more difficult for employers that want to evaluate such convictions before making an informed hiring decision.

by Nick Fishman

We’re big ERE fans here and are honored that they published our release entitled 10 Background Screening Trends to Track in 2008.

Have a look.

by Nick Fishman

I just wanted to send out a quick announcement to let you know that we will be exhibiting at the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration (ASHHRA) 43rd Annual Conference and Exhibition in Anaheim California at the Disneyland Hotel September 30th through October 1st. If you plan on attending, please stop by our booth and say hello. At the very least, we’ll have free giveaways and a chance to win an American Express Gift Card. Oh yeah . . . and you’ll get to meet me! What more could you ask for?

by Nick Fishman

I hate to blatantly copy a post I’ve made elsewhere, but I’m rather impressed with myself (or at least the topic) on this one I recently posted on Xtra Cheezhead. See below.

Okay, so you’ve conducted a background check on a prospective employee and decide that they meet your standards. You extend an offer and that person accepts the job and becomes a valuable member of your team. Now that the person has been hired, most companies would not be inclined to consider further background checks. Well the times, they are a-changing.

While the concept of follow up background checks has been around for a long time and employed by security conscious organizations, you are seeing this emerging trend creep into the consciousness of your average business. It even has a shiny new name that many are using: “Infinity Screening”. I’m a big advocate of this practice because it allows you to evaluate your current employees for adverse information throughout their employment. An easy example is conducting annual Motor Vehicle Record check on those that drive company cars.

Please click on the link below to view the rest of this post:
http://www.cheezhead.com/xtra/2007/09/07/post-employment-screening/

by Nick Fishman

This is pretty drastic. Evidently Illinois governor Rob Blagojevich distrusts the Social Security Administration’s and Department of Homeland Security’s databases so much that he and other Illinois law-makers have banned the use of the basic pilot program. The basic pilot program allows employers to query these databases to determine if their employees are legal U.S. workers. I understand their concern about the fallibility of these databases. There are definitely some false-positives that come across (tentative non-confirmations that occur due to poor record keeping or data entry by these governmental agencies), but this seems a bit drastic. See the article below.

New State Law Bans Use of Residency Tool

There is a vague provision that allows use of the system after “training” of an organization has occurred. I have been told by those in the know that this legislation is most likely in response to a power play from Illinois’ labor unions and that this law will ultimately be deemed unconstitutional.

by Jason Morris

I was quoted in this months Security Management Magazine, a publication put out by ASIS International. The article is entitled “Checking IT Backgrounds”, Enjoy!