by Jason Morris

According to Human Resource Executive Magazine the need for international recruiting is going to explode.  In the United States we are experiencing a massive nursing shortage.  According to the Baltimore based Center for Nursing Advocacy, the US is projected to have a shortage of 275,000 nurses by 2010.  HR Executive writes an interesting article;  RX for International Recruiting.  Currently there are no standards for recruiting nurses internationally.

And the United States is not alone, according to Patricia Pittman, executive vice president of Washington-based AcademyHealth, a nonpartisan organization that focuses on health research and policy.

“It’s really impossible to compete with salaries in the United States,” says Pittman, who estimates that a nurse can earn up to 10 times their salary in the source country.

This is creating some big issues across the globe.  Unethical recruiters see huge dollar signs and are doing everything they can to bring nurses to the US.  Recruiters in India and the Philippines seem to be taking advantage of this and are using unethical means to recruit talent.  According to HRE in order to respond to the problem, a code of ethics for recruiting foreign-educated nurses was recently unveiled at the National Press Club in Washington by a task force of health care professionals, attorneys and recruiters, among others.

What does this mean to you?  Make sure you are doing background checks on your recruiters and nurses.  International Background Checks or Global Background Screening services are available and should be utilized in all cases.  Make sure your foreign recruiters are adhearing to ethical standard and not putting your orgainization at risk.

by Jason Morris

Be wary of who you are hiring!  When hiring someone from a foreign country a title of “doctor” can mean many things.   Utilizing a solid global screening or international screening program is more important than ever.  Simply verifying a professional license or checking the equivalency of a license could make a big difference.  Imagine the embarrassment of hiring a doctor only to find out he is a doctor of nothing!

Highly “Educated” Dictators of Tehran

The fiasco of the clumsily forged Oxford doctoral diploma of the Iranian interior minister is comically tragic. Unfortunately for the interior Minister Ali Kordan, he will not be able to join the elite group of Dr. Ahmadinejad, Dr. Larijani, Dr. Khatami, Dr. Maleki, Dr. Rezaii, Dr. Motaki, Dr. Jajili and a thousand other officials with a PhD degree any time soon. However this debacle raises the question, why Tehran´s rulers feel the need to carry the title of “Doctor” to govern?

More than anyone else, these inept executives are conscious of their own incompetence. Most of them have climbed up the same four step career ladder: Revolutionary Guard, prosecutor/torturer/executioner, provincials governor, city mayor or division director, and finally minister/MP/president. Their busy vocational path has left little time for learning skills needed to run the government. Purchasing a PhD diploma has been the logical choice for these rulers to purge intellectuals and educated workforce, and place themselves better to rip off the county´s wealth.

The popularity of the doctoral title among the theocratic dictators is also due to the ill reputation and disgrace associated with religious titles such as “Hojatoleslam” and “Ayatollah” among people. Such religious titles in Iran are now symbols of demagogy, brutality, and despotism.

For those officials who are engaged in interactions with the international communities , such as nuclear negotiation teams, or ambassadors, the doctoral title is used to conceal insincerity and deceitful intents and cunning tactics.

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by Jason Morris

India, one of the largest pools of IT professionals in the world is seeing an increased need for background checks.  One of the reasons we launched employeescreen University was to educate employers across the globe on the virtues of doing proper employee background investigations.  One bad hire can cost your company millions in lost revenue and a lot of embarrassment.  Global background checks or “international background screening” is a growing trend. (Read employeescreenIQ 2009 Trends).

This story is a perfect example of why organizations need to tighten up their hiring practices.

IT Firms Have No Place for a Fake Resume

The IT-BPO industry is becoming increasingly clear that a fake resume can cost you your job with India’s largest IT serivces provider, Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), being the latest to recently ask close to 20 employees at its Kolkata centre to leave. The company, during the background verification, found that these employees have used fudged resumes to get jobs.

In the recent past all the major IT firms including Infosys, Satyam and Wipro Technologies and many mid-cap firms have taken a hard stand on fake or fudged resumes. However, the incidents continue. First Advantage, a leading background screening firm, in its recent report states that 30 per cent of all the resumes they have screened have discrepancies. In 2006-07 the company screened over 2 million applicants across industries. Ashish Dehade, managing director (West Asia), First Advantage says, “The percentage has been increasing. In 2006 it was 16-17 per cent, for 2007 its was 30 per cent and while we are just six months into 2008 the percentage is around 30 per cent.”

TCS is not the only firm doing this. Earlier Infosys had asked close to 100 employees to leave in FY07 due to discrepancies found in the resumes. Same goes for Satyam and Wipro Technologies. Some time back it was reported that Wipro would be sharing with other IT firms the database of job applicants who have faked information in their CVs.

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by Jason Morris

This is a step in the right direction.  With international screening becoming more important across the globe this could be a big win for screening firms.  Nothing will come out of this directly for background firms but its a step that could make more records available in the future.

EU aims to share criminal records with its members

The European Commission has proposed the establishment of the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS) a computerised database allowing European Union member states to share the criminal records of their citizens.

Announcing the ECRIS proposals, European Commission Vice-president Jacques Barrot, the Commissioner responsible for Justice Freedom and Security said in a statement: “To reinforce the European Area of Security and Justice, and to ensure the security of citizens, it is important to establish at European level a concrete and user-friendly system which will enable an efficient exchange of information on previous convictions of criminals.

“Information about previous conviction shall circulate between judges and prosecutors as well as police authorities. This is essential in order to provide adequate responses to crime but also to prevent new crimes from being committed,” explained the Commissioner, who recently took over the portfolio in an internal reshuffle of the Barroso Commission.

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by Jason Morris

The results were ignored? Whats the point!! Screening employees in Australia has been a hot topic “down under” over the years. From our research Australia, like the US, embraces the concept of employment screening.

Meagher defends disgraced doctor reference check claims

New South Wales Health Minister Reba Meagher has rejected suggestions she misled State Parliament by saying no background checks were performed on a far south coast disgraced doctor.

The State Opposition has released a diary note from a senior Health Department executive which it says shows one of Dr Graeme Reeves’ referees warning the doctor was not meant to do obstetrics.

The Opposition says the diary entry shows background checks were done on Dr Reeves, but were then ignored.

Ms Meagher has told Parliament she stands by her previous comments.

“The Opposition are being quite disingenuous with the way they are waving around a handwritten note … and trying to purport that in fact that is in some way an official record of a background check because it is simply not,” she said.

State Labor MP Mick Veitch has also been drawn into the scandal involving the disgraced doctor.

Mr Veitch used to be the deputy chairman of the Southern Area Health Service and its board minutes show that in 2002 he personally signed off on the appointment of Dr Reeves.

Opposition health spokeswoman Jillian Skinner says there are now even more questions to be answered about the appointment of the doctor.

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