EmployeeScreenIQ Blog

Joseph Mannino, a registered nurse who previously served three years in a North Carolina prison on an involuntary manslaughter conviction, was fired from his job at Lehigh Valley Hospital in 2008 for lying about his conviction status on his application for employment.  Time employed before the hospital found out: about three years.

Why did three years go by before his lie was discovered?  I have a better question.  Why didn’t the hospital learn of his conviction when they conducted the background check on him?  Better yet, how was he able to get a nursing license in the state of Pennsylvania?

If you guessed that both his nursing school and employer only conducted statewide criminal checks through the Pennsylvania State Police, you are spot on!

While the PA State Police criminal check may be a good tool to finding records in the state of Pennsylvania (but only as a supplement to a comprehensive countywide criminal search -remember!), it is definitely not a good source for any records maintained beyond its borders.  His school and employer make the argument that he met the two year residency requirement so that is why the statewide search was conducted.  In no way is that a legitimate excuse for not knowing about the conviction!  Convicted felons should not get a pass just because they meet some arbitrary residency requirement.  This is a person who was employed to care for vulnerable people, had access to controlled substances and sensitive personal  information.  The bottom line is that his employer should have been aware of his criminal past prior to making the hiring decision.  Conducting a thorough criminal search in all of the places your applicant has lived and worked (as far back as you can go) is the best way to find out who you are really employing.

Convicted Killer Hired As Nurse

By Bo Koltnow, WFMZ-TV – March 15, 2010

SALISBURY TWP., Pa. — A convicted killer landed a nursing job and years went by before he was outed.  

By all accounts, Joseph Mannino of Palmer Township, Northampton County was a good employee when he worked as a nurse for Lehigh Valley Hospital.

But in 2008, he had his nursing license revoked and was fired for lying on his job application.  

The lie? Not being a convicted felon.  

Lehigh Valley Hospital said it never would have hired Mannino in 2005 if it knew then what it knows now. 

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For years now, we have watched competitors tout their annual criminal hit statistics in rather grand style.  I have always chuckled a bit when I see them, because the media eats up the information as if it is truly newsworthy.  While I never want to knock the work of others, here are some facts to consider.  A major payroll company just released that of the 5.5 million background checks they performed, 10% the candidates they screened had some type of criminal record or driving infraction.

10% certainly sounds like an impressive number, right?  Now, let me let you in on a little secret.  EmployeeScreenIQ finds criminal records or infractions on nearly 19% of all applicants screened, nearly double what is found by the aforementioned organization. And that doesn’t even include driving infractions.

Why the difference?  Like all products and services, there are various levels of quality.  The fact that someone performs a criminal background check is not in itself a complete description of the service performed.  We’ve waxed poetically about the differences between various criminal research methods: national databases, statewide searches, federal district search and the gold standard, county criminal record search (the primary method utilized by EmployeeScreenIQ).  I’ll spare you another lecture on the subject, but I will say that the disparity in these statistics validate the effectiveness of our best practice employment screening methods.

So, does this mean that our competitor’s who boast such information are bad companies?  Not at all.  It just means that employers must get beneath the surface when considering the best company for their needs to make sure they understand what information they are and are not getting.

More on this subject to follow in the near future.

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And for our 900th EmployeeScreenIQ Blog post we have IRONY!  When we started blogging many years ago we wrote a lot about the failures of FBI background screening.  Well today, for our monumental 90oth post, the story has been written for us!

Fired Due To Error In Background Check, Carroll Woman Still Jobless

Eschol Amelia Studnitz lost her $58,000 accounting job July 31 because a government background check deemed her “unsuitable” for a low-level security clearance. She was stunned. She had no criminal record.

“I kept thinking, ‘What could I have done?’ ” said the 59-year-old Carroll County resident, who goes by the name Amy.

Her shock was warranted: Her firing was based on a mistake. And within days, her employer, Corporate Mailing Services of Arbutus, heard from the Social Security Administration that she could, in fact, work on a new contract handling mail for the agency.

But three bewildering months after her dismissal, Studnitz has not been rehired or found other work in this tight job market. A single woman who’s relying on her $405 weekly unemployment checks, she says she is behind on the mortgage for her Manchester home and has a shut-off notice from Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.

“I’m in a jam, a real jam,” she said, “and I didn’t do this to myself.” She wants to regain the job she landed in April 2008, but the company now says it won’t rehire her due to supposed performance shortfalls. She would like to sue the government for thousands of dollars of lost income, but could face long odds.

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Since we started our blog and our award winning EmployeeScreen University we have used these forums to keep you informed.  I find myself going through tons of stories every weekend to find just a few to write about on Monday mornings.  What I find however is that I end up leaving so many behind.  Some of these we end up discussing in our podcast series, This Week in Backgrounds (TWIB) but for the most part they go ‘un-posted.’  This is why I am going to attempt a new series, The Background Screening Weekend Wrap-up.  We already have too many acronyms so I will spare you another. So here we go:

Monday September 14th, 2009 – Background Screening Weekend Wrap-up

This week I will kick it off with a controversial topic, gun show background checks.  This is a topic we rarely write about but sometimes a good story hits our in-box.  An Idaho television station posted this story: Gun sales even out but background checks still tough.

Next, Business Insurance magazine talks about ex-convicts entering the workplace.

Ex-convicts in workforce pose liability problems.

California employers would be wise to take another look at their criminal background check policies in light of the possibility the state may be forced to release many prisoners early because of jail overcrowding, say some observers.

Many employers, particularly large corporations, already have such policies in place. Nationally, all employers must contend, though, with myriad state laws limiting how they may use this information as well as concern by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that these checks have a disparate impact on minorities.

The next two stories are from across the pond in the United Kingdom

The Telegraph is reporting about the high cost of the new vetting database that has been proposed.

Vetting database will cost £200 million and create 1,450 jobs in Labour marginal

Public bodies such as the NHS and the Prison Service will be forced to spend millions of pounds registering their employees on the scheme at a time when their budgets have already been squeezed.

And finally, a serious case of missed records.  Officials are being criticized for failing to check this UK residents criminal past in the United States.

Freed to murder by flawed system

Lorry driver Russell Carter has been convicted of murdering his boss and trying to kill three other men – but the authorities have been criticised for failing to spot his violent past in the US.

On Friday, a jury decided Carter, 52, from Rumney, Cardiff, had throttled Kingsley Monk to death before trying to kill three other employees at the Driverline 247 recruitment agency in Pontypool, Torfaen.

So, that’s it!  Enjoy your week.

If you have stories you would like us to blog about or post please feel free to email us at blog@employeescreen.com

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An Ontario court has ruled that the city of Ottawa would be violating its firefighters’ right to privacy by conducting mid-employment criminal records checks.  The court ruled that the only circumstances under which the city would be allowed to run a criminal records search on a firefighter would be either when the the employee is hired or when he or she has been convicted of a crime while employed.

Question #1:  How does the court expect the city to know about the criminal conviction that took place while the firefighter is employed without running the mid-employment criminal records check? 

Question #2:  Is the court naive enough to think that an employee will only commit a crime in their jurisdiction, thereby giving the city a heads up to conduct the search?

Question #3:  Does the court really think that an employee will volunteer crime or conviction information from another jurisdiction and put his or her job in jeopardy?

The court then introduced the question of whether the city should be allowed to run background checks on their firefighters prior to employment, again citing right to privacy.  Don’t even get me started!

Ontario court rejects mid-employment criminal record checks

08/19/2009

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I would love to be the company conducting this background check in the future.  Imagine being the interviewer and asking Mr. Moyer if he can explain the charges that were uncovered during the employment screening process.  “Mr. Moyer, it say’s here that you sexually assaulted a Disney character, care to explain?”  Almost as embarrassing as being caught having sexual relations with a horse! (See that story from last weeks blog)

Man guilty of groping Minnie Mouse at Disney

John William Moyer will face sentencing for groping Minnie Mouse at Disney World

A jury this morning found John William Moyer guilty of groping of a woman playing Minnie Mouse at Walt Disney World.

Moyer, 60, of Pennsylvania, was convicted of misdemeanor battery for the June incident this morning.

Judge Wayne Shoemaker imposed the sentence this morning.

“The verdict reinforces the fact that this type of behavior is not acceptable,” said Walt Disney World spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez. Disney officials also banned Moyer from entering any of the company’s resorts, Suarez said.

According to the sentence, Moyer has to write a letter of apology to the victim, Brittney Duncan McGoldrick. He also is under supervised probation for 180 days, must complete 50 hours of community service within four months, pay $1,000 in court costs and submit to a mental evaluation with treatment, if necessary.

Before sentencing, Moyer’s adult son spoke on his behalf.

“He’s a good man,” Emory Moyer said. “He’s a nice guy.”

Emory Moyer also described his father as a man who would never touch a woman inappropriately.

Later, Moyer spoke briefly to the judge.

“I am innocent, I am not guilty of the crimes that I’ve been charged with,” Moyer said.

Moyer has no criminal history and has never received a speeding ticket, he said. This was his first offense.

McGoldrick told prosecutors at the Orange County Courthouse on Monday she had pushed Moyer away from her after the incident.

“My first reaction I just pushed him down. I was doing everything I could to get his hands off my breasts,” Duncan McGoldrick said.

Jurors began their deliberations Monday afternoon.

“We’re just hoping for the only fair and just verdict in this case, which is ‘not guilty’,” said Zahra S. Umansky, Moyer’s attorney.

Moyer had been booked into Orange County Jail on June 7 and was released on $1,000 bail.

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It appears that  HR 3149 was introduced yesterday and Referred to Committee.  HR 3149 is a bill set to amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to prohibit the use of consumer credit checks against prospective and current employees for the purposes of making adverse employment decisions.  EmployeeScreenIQ and EmployeeScreen University have written about this topic many times in the past.  As an industry, pre-employment credit reports are only suggested to be used when necessary and only for the responsibilities of that particular position.  In fact, the EEOC and FCRA already have provisions that the adverse information can only be used if it fits within the scope of the job. Most background screening programs only impliment this type of check as part of a much broader search.

Section three of the bill provides some exceptions but does not take into account most of them.  We suggest you spend some time reading this bill and write your congressperson to oppose it.  We agree the intent of this bill is to get more people to work.  However, as with most legislation, there are some unintended consequences.  There must be provisions for positions that could be negatively effected by a person with a poor credit history.  This 111th Congress has a horrible track record already for not even reading bills before voting.  Reach out and make a difference, make them read it, make them amend it!

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Ready. Soapbox in place, OK, here we go!

Dear Uncle Sam, when you put a mandate in place please make sure you have the capacity and bandwidth to execute it.  I am sure we can all agree that screening dockworkers is paramount to an effective homeland security policy.  However, if you can’t screen them and reach your deadlines who is going to work on the docks?  Uncle Sam, many of us have lobbied you for years that the US Government does a horrible job with background checks, maybe this is your lesson learned.  As background screeners, we understand that the unions position is contrary to the goal that every job is not for every person.  We do agree with them that this process is very much flawed and workers can’t feed their families because you (still talking to my fictional Uncle Sam) can’t do your job properly.  A proper employment screening program can be executed by a qualified employment screening company in 1-3 days.  I am sure the AFL-CIO would concur that your method is flawed, lets do it right!

Report: Security Screening Process Flawed, Leaves Dockworkers Jobless

Thousands of longshore workers, truck drivers and other workers at ports across the nation are out of work, not because of a staggering economy, but because they are caught up in a backlogged, inefficient and often inaccurate screening process for background security checks.

According to a new report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the federal Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA’s) post-Sept.  11 port worker background checks have put thousands of otherwise qualified and experienced port workers on the streets instead of the docks, with no rights to back pay once they gain their security clearance.

Most of the workers caught in this bureaucratic limbo are members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), Longshoremen (ILA) and Teamsters (IBT).

The report is the first evaluation of the worker protections in TSA’s Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC). It finds that thousands of workers—disproportionately African American and Latino men—have had to wait an average of seven months while their applications are reviewed, leaving them unable to work and support their families in the midst of a devastating recession.

According to the report, “A Scorecard on the Post-9/11 Port Worker Background Checks,” more than 10,000 workers had lost their jobs while awaiting TSA approval of their TWIC cards after the April 14 compliance deadline passed. Laura Moskowitz, a NELP attorney who led the study, says:

Due to serious problems with the FBI’s records, insufficient staffing and poor TSA screening protocols, there have been major processing delays for workers at ports, which means that large numbers of hard-working families are being left out in the cold at the worst possible time.

To be approved for access to the ports, applicants are subject to criminal background checks using the FBI’s database, immigration status and other security checks. However, the report notes that 50 percent of the FBI’s rap sheets are incomplete or out of date. Contrary to the federal law, TSA denies credentials in an overly broad range of cases such as open arrests, even if they have been dismissed or addressed.

When a worker is denied a security clearance and decides to appeal, Moskowitz says:

TSA and the FBI put the entire burden on the worker to collect the necessary information to clear their records and navigate the process all on their own, which then leaves thousands of workers falling through the cracks of the TWIC program.

It also finds that while worker protections in the program’s appeal process take far too long, eventually almost all workers win their credential cards on appeal. More than 24,000 workers, largely African American and Latinos, were able to keep their jobs with the help of the special protections for workers who are initially denied a credential card based on their record.

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Screening your employees before they get hired is the norm.  Utilizing new tools to screen your employees after they are employed is gaining momentum.  Services such as IQ Review have been available for a few years.  If you are a loyal reader you know we don’t use our blog for shameless plugs, however, its a nice tie in to the story below!  Let this serve as a lesson to employers to utilize all the employment screening tools available to you.

UGA Employee Kept Working Despite Facing Felony Theft Charge

A University employee, working as a computer specialist with access to student Social Security numbers, continued to work in the Registrar’s Office for almost a year despite facing a felony theft by deception charge that in April resulted in a guilty plea yielding a 10-year prison term.

William Ora Mullen accepted a plea deal on April 28, the same day he submitted his letter of resignation to the University.

But, it was not until May 6, nearly a week after the plea and 10 months after he was originally charged, that the University learned the details behind Mullen’s sudden resignation. Mullen informed the Office of Legal Affairs of his guilty plea, and within hours Registrar Rebecca Macon removed his access to University servers and databases, and had all passwords changed.

“When he notified us [of the conviction], we took him out of the office and we were done with him,” Tom Jackson, vice president of Public Affairs, told The Red & Black. “According to Rebecca Macon he used some vacation hours but was not in the office once he reported the violation.”

At that point, the University was in scramble mode. Mullen was given half sick days on May 6 and 8 and full sick days on May 11 and 12. On May 7, Macon accepted Mullen’s vague resignation letter.

In it, Mullen wrote “this decision is unfortunately not of my own choosing and is necessary considering my current situation.”

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I first came across this topic earlier today reading Sam Narisi’s blog, HR Recruiting Alert.  A brilliant piece that originated from an article in last months Wall Street Journal.  Applicants are dumbing down their resumes so they don’t look OVERQUALIFIED!  In Narisi’s piece, “The New Lie Applicants Are Telling.” he states:

With jobs hard to come by, more and more applicants are lying on their resumes. But they’re not the kind of lies you’re used to.

As HR pros know, it’s not out of the question for candidates to inflate their past job titles and duties, or add academic degrees that were never completed.

But these days, many out-of-work managers are looking for stop-gap jobs and are stretching the truth in a different way — by “dumbing down” their credentials so they don’t appear overqualified.

A lot of formerly high-up employees are willing to step a few rungs down the ladder just to get a steady paycheck. Often, that requires them to convince hiring managers they won’t jump ship the moment the market improves and something better comes up.

One way their doing that: changing job titles to look less impressive, according to the Wall Street Journal. For example, one marketing exec listed her previous jobs as “manager” and “trend researcher” to “staff” and “office support.”

Candidates are also hiding degrees and other academic achievements. One woman looking for temporary clerical work said she received no calls from employers until she stopped listing her master’s degree on her resume.

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According to the Wall Street Journal’s article:

Kristin Konopka sent out nearly 100 copies of her résumé in January in search of receptionist work, but got only one callback. That’s when Ms. Konopka, a 29-year-old New York actress and yoga teacher, took her master’s degree and academic teaching experience off her résumé.

The calls started coming in. The slimmer version of her résumé landed in 30 in-boxes and earned her three callbacks and two interviews. “It definitely picked up the interest,” says Ms. Konopka, who realized quickly that people don’t “want to hire anyone who is overqualified.”

Securing work in a tight economy means more job seekers might find themselves applying for positions below their qualifications. Many unemployed professionals are willing to take paycuts for the promise of a paycheck. But to get a foot in the door, candidates are gearing down their résumés by hiding advanced degrees, changing too-lofty titles, shortening work experience descriptions, and removing awards and accolades.

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So, when we started EmployeeScreenIQ in 1999 one of our pitches was not to overpay candidates because they lied about their qualifications.  I guess employers need to be cautious and do background checks so not to pay market value when they are overqualified? Chew on that for a while???

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