A New York City law firm filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming Madison Square Garden discriminates against African-American job applicants by illegally using criminal history reports in making hiring decisions.

The EEOC complaint alleges that Carlene Clarke, 27, received an employment offer letter from New York’s Madison Square Garden in September 2007 which was rescinded a month later after a background check discovered she had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault more than five years earlier.

According to the press release issued by Outten & Golden LLP, which represents Clarke, the rationale for the complaint is that “use of criminal histories in making hiring and other employment decisions has a disparate impact on African-Americans.”

Outten & Golden attorney Justin M. Swartz said, “The fact is, about one in five U.S. adults has a criminal record, and a disproportionate number of them are African-Americans and Hispanics.”

An MSG official declined to discuss the complaint, but emailed us a statement saying, “Ms. Clarke pleaded guilty to assault. We conduct criminal background checks in order to ensure the safety of our fans and employees. This policy is not discriminatory.”

New York is one of only a handful of states that has laws specifically limiting an employer’s ability to exclude job-seekers with a criminal record. Federal courts have also extended Civil Rights Act protection to minorities with criminal records, requiring in the case of convictions for an employer to consider the passage of time, the nature of the crime, and its relationship to the position.

Whether or not Clarke’s complaint is upheld, Brian Poe, founder and CEO of ClearMyRecord.com, said the use of background checks to disqualify job candidates and dismiss current employees has become so widespread that it may be time for Congress to enact a Fair Criminal Record Reporting Act.

“A criminal record shouldn’t be a life sentence,” Poe told us. But with electronic databases that now routinely reach back to the sixties and even earlier, “something you did 20 years ago will hurt you today,” he adds.

Poe founded ClearMyRecord.com in 1999 to help individuals remove or seal criminal and arrest records and get mention of them removed from electronic databases. The site won’t help people whose arrest involved a sex charge or a minor, but it has helped thousands of others, including, the company reports, one person who won a presidential pardon this year.

Poe says his clients aren’t hardcore or career criminals, since states won’t permit them to clean their records. Most, he said, are minor offenders who made a mistake.

Typical, said Poe, is the case of a former police officer who was arrested for writing bad checks 18 years ago during a nasty divorce. The arrest has prevented the man’s hiring by other departments despite a clean record and steady employment in private security.

In another case, a career postal worker was fired after a periodic background check turned up his 1962 conviction for assault in connection with a Texas bar brawl.

It doesn’t take a felony or even a conviction to give someone a record. “These companies,” Poe said, referring to database firms that buy criminal and arrest records directly from the nation’s 50 states and 3,100 counties, “get all the records then resell them to smaller companies. Employers use these services and don’t (distinguish between) an arrest or a conviction.”

Because ClearMyRecord can’t help everyone convicted of a crime, Poe started Hard2Hire.org as a non-profit job service for ex-offenders. Since launching in June the site has grown to about 2,000 weekly visitors and, says Poe, several companies have agreed to consider hiring ex-offenders.

Poe explains that many companies with blanket policies against hiring ex-offenders may be willing to modify them in certain cases. “We go straight to employers and ask them about their policy,” he said, describing a give-and-take in which he’ll search for the threshold — say a 5- or 10-year-old property crime and clean record since — where a company might relent.

“We see this all the time,” Poe said, “where an old conviction is holding someone back. We need a Fair Criminal Record Reporting Act like the Fair Credit Reporting Act to keep one mistake from being a life sentence.”

Do you outsource the reference-checking process to a third party or your administrative staff?

Are you asking “legal” type questions (eligible for rehire, dates of employment) and a few innocuous “Can you tell me the strengths and weaknesses?” type questions?

These old-school reference practices do little more than irritate the reference you are contacting.

If you have the correct reference contact and the appropriate information, you can get do better.

How?

It starts with the candidate.

Explain to the candidate you have a vested interest in placing them. Let them know that the hiring manager expects us recruiters to say how wonderful our candidates are. Therefore, you need their help. Ask them:

Who is the most influential, senior-level person you know at your (past and present) place of employment that we would could contact and confirm all of the great things you?

Ask the candidate for specific examples as to how they saved or made the company money. Would their supervisor think they had a positive ROI? Why?

Examples of candidate statements:

For an accountant:

“In our accounts payable department I changed the contract terms with several vendors to 90 days, instead of 60 days, thus saving the company $50,000 in six months.”

Or for a technical developer:

“I developed a website which allowed customers to check the progress of their order. This reduced calls to our customer service line by 80%, thus reducing headcount and saving the company $50,000 per quarter.”

Also find out how the candidate would rank themselves against others who do the same sort of work — and why.

Example of candidate statement:

“I would rank myself number 2 out of 10 people in the accounting department, because my work was extremely accurate and I was always asked to do special projects.”

After you secure the ROI statements, call the reference and ask them to confirm or comment on the statements.

Example:

“Mr. Supervisor, John had stated that he saved the organization around $50,000 by modifying the terms with vendors in the accounts payable department. Is that accurate?”

This takes the pressure off the reference. They don’t have to — on the fly — provide evidence as to how the employee contributed. The reference is less likely to push you to HR, because you are asking them to confirm statements, not create statements.

Lastly, ask the reference if they would be open to speaking directly to your hiring manager if needed.

Next steps:

Provide these ROI statements on the submittal! Instead of you saying that the candidate is great, the candidate’s supervisor(s) is providing the data. Imagine if you had a quote from the CFO saying the candidate saved the organization $50,000, strategically modifying the accounts payable terms.

We assume grownups go to work on time, and do not lie about their dates of employment. Such details can be confirmed by the HR department, but capturing ROI information from a senior-level supervisor can positively influence your hiring managers to make a decision.

New I-9 Form Released…

U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services just released its new version of the I-9 employment verification form, so make sure to update your records. (You can download it here; note that the new expiration date in the right-hand corner reflects 6/30/09.) You can move to an e-file for these forms, and perhaps you should: employeescreenIQ says its data shows that more than 85% of paper I-9 forms are filled out incorrectly. And electronically verifying this step is certainly a “greener” thing to do, and companies like Verified Person, Inc. agree. Its CEO, Jim Davis, says his Verified Person I-9 solution “affirms Verified Person’s belief in promoting an HR process that benefits the environment.”

From Resume Fluffing to Conviction Bluffing…

The folks at employeescreenIQ also say one of the hottest background-screening trends centers around the importance of thorough background checks in a shrinking job market. In fact, considering the state of the economy, “the job market is destined to become even more competitive, which in turn could lead some individuals to stretch the truth in order to secure employment,” according to the company’s new list of 10 background screening trends. Also, employeescreenIQ says conviction rates among job applicants are on the rise, and points to a 56% discrepancy rate between what is reported on a resume and what is found when conducting employment and education verifications.

TMI on MySpace?

Does the idea of lurking on someone’s MySpace page make you yell, “Too much information!” or do you view it as a (lurid) source of quality screening? What about reading someone’s biographical data on LinkedIn? Though stylistically very different (LinkedIn is more button-down; MySpace is more, er, unbuttoned?), these websites provide glimpses into the backgrounds of hopeful job candidates. Just remember two things if you decide to spend more time on these sites: failure-to-hire lawsuits can be a real headache, be it from MySpace, Google, or any other website, and avoid “friending” Natasha Kone on LinkedIn at all costs.

Genie on a Job Board…

In the June 26 issue of WEDDLE’s Newsletter, by industry analyst Peter Weddle, he advises that the key to using the Web for employers and job seekers is to manage your expectations.

“What’s out of whack is our perception of what the Internet can and cannot do,” he says. Though, “this technology is probably the single most effective means of connecting” employees and employers, it takes time to work. He advises job-seekers, in particular, that “The Internet is not some genie,” nor is it “a magic carpet that can carry you off to employment bliss the minute you hop on. No, the Web for all of its reach and technological power is bound by the pace of the humans who use it at the other end–the employers and recruiters who turn to the Web to find new talent.”

Government Security Clearance…

Weddle also reports that ClearanceJobs.com’s recently released snapshot of security clearance salaries finds that those who have a security clearance earn 25% more than those who do not. This is not without hurdles, because “you have to be able to pass the intensive screening that’s involved in applying for a clearance, plus be in a job where a clearance is required for job performance. Even then, it may take a long time to acquire this advantage, as the backlog of Federal background investigations is already huge and growing,” says Weddle.

]]> http://www.ere.net/2008/06/26/the-new-i-9-form-and-other-screening-trends/feed/ http://www.ere.net/2008/02/21/choicepoint-bought-for-36-billion/ http://www.ere.net/2008/02/21/choicepoint-bought-for-36-billion/#comments Thu, 21 Feb 2008 05:47:00 +0000 Todd Raphael http://www.ere.net/2008/02/21/choicepoint-bought-for-36-billion/ The company has seen its share of bad news, but not today.

ChoicePoint is being bought by the British company that owns LexisNexis. ChoicePoint’s stock is up dramatically today, about 43%.

As a staffing professional, how many resumes have you reviewed in your career? Hundreds? Thousands? Do you ever find yourself pausing over something in a resume just because it seems strange? I recently found myself doing just that, and it ended up taking me down a very interesting path.

The resume in question was that of an IT professional who was under consideration for a full-time position. I was reviewing the resume when I noticed that, under the Education section, the job-seeker had indicated that he had “matriculated” at a school in Europe, had obtained an IT certification, and had received a B.S. degree in Computer Science.

“Hmmm, that’s strange,” I thought. It is rare to read a resume that lacks the name of the applicant’s alma mater, so we probed a bit. He told us that he had received his degree from a school in Alabama (let’s call it Acme University).

As things progressed with this candidate, we had our third-party vendor verify his academic credentials as part of our regular background screening process. No problem, as he did indeed have a degree from Acme University, and even provided the background screener with a copy of his diploma.

I’ll stop here, since you can probably see where this is going. Of course, there is no Acme University. But not only does this job-seeker have a diploma, but he could just as well have provided a letter of recommendation from one of his “professors,” produced a transcript, or supplied contact information for the school. He might even have a student ID card or a class ring!

“Diploma mills” have been around for a long time (I remember seeing ads for them back when I was in graduate school). As is the case with so many other scams, the Internet and our global marketplace have allowed this problem to reappear in a more pernicious form. Companies that sell diplomas come and go quickly online, often operating from overseas, which makes tracking them extremely difficult.

I believe this will grow to become an even bigger problem for those of us involved in talent acquisition. Because of new legislation designed to protect job seekers from discrimination, job descriptions have become much more specific regarding qualifications that are required vs. those that are simply preferred.

Having a degree can now make the difference between receiving fair consideration for a position, and getting a form response e-mail. It is not surprising that people are willing to take the risk of getting caught. Combine this with the recent proliferation of legitimate online educational resources, and the situation becomes almost overwhelmingly complex. The potential liabilities, however, are sobering.

Take a simple scenario: What if you hired someone to perform a specific task, and their degree is the proof that they are competent to perform that task (i.e., hiring a lawyer to review contracts). If they had a fake degree, it would be bad. But what if they interacted directly with an external customer while performing that service?

What if you selected this person over the next most-qualified job-seeker because their degree gave them an edge?

Are You Scared Yet?

Now imagine that someone is injured as a result of their work, or the company gets sued because of something they did. What if it’s revealed that your company didn’t bother to verify their academic credentials? Or, worse, that you did and then failed to take action.

My first response upon uncovering this whole sordid business was probably one many others would have: “I’ll simply ensure the job-seeker’s degree was granted by an ?accredited’ school.”

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. First, many diploma mills are accredited, just not by a legitimate body. Legitimate accreditation by the appropriate boards is also complicated, since there is no single organization responsible for the process.

In the United States, for example, there are several regional boards that grant accreditation to schools who voluntarily submit to a review, but there are significant distinctions at the state level. As you might imagine, things get even stickier when you try and establish accreditation for schools in another country.

It’s not the intention of this article to solve the problem; no matter what solutions are implemented today, someone will probably find a way around them tomorrow. As staffing professionals, we need to make decisions about how to respond. Our customers are relying upon us to develop strategies for ensuring high performers get through the door and behind a desk. Fast.

Tips to Implement Now

• Develop a broad-based strategy. Your organization is looking to you to come to them with a solution. You can be nearly certain that you will encounter this problem sometime in the future, so the time to decide how to react is now. By the way, relying upon your background screener to catch this for you is not a strategy! They only do what you tell them to do. Look upon this as a fantastic opportunity to take ownership and examine the overall process you use to evaluate resumes. Work with your employment counsel, and determine where best to put controls in place. Prepare your management for what will happen when you catch someone with a phony degree, and explain beforehand what the next steps will be.
• Implement a process for verifying academic credentials. It would be wonderful if there was a website somewhere that listed all the “diploma mills” in existence. Unfortunately, since they tend to come and go pretty quickly, there’s never a complete list. Further, certain types of diploma mills are technically not doing anything illegal; they are simply selling pieces of paper that look like diplomas. The wrongdoing is perpetrated only when the job-seeker tries to represent them as something they are not. While there are no comprehensive diploma mill lists, there are lists of accredited schools available online. The Federal Office of Postsecondary Education or the Council on Higher Education Accreditation are great places to start. Just keep in mind that accreditation is not necessarily an endorsement that a school is good or bad, only that the school volunteered to undergo a process. There are numerous resources about this topic available on the Internet.
• Listen to your gut instinct. As a staffing professional, always listen to your gut instinct when you find yourself questioning any strange or confusing background information.

As I reflect upon all I’ve learned on this journey, I keep returning to the idea that we as staffing professionals are in a great position to add real value to our organizations.

Consider other things we encounter in a typical resume that could be subject to “alternative” interpretations: endorsements from personal references, prior professional accomplishments, language fluencies, etc. Simply establishing the credibility of someone’s degree is only another piece of the puzzle we try to assemble every time we’re identifying talent for our organizations.

Rather than simply adding another box to check in my pre-screening process, I’ve decided to use this as a way of challenging my customers with questions about the types of talent they want and what “good” really looks like to them.

It’s wonderful that technology has allowed us to automate so many of our processes, and abiding by specific and documented workflows has helped make the process of matching “job-seeker with a job” a much more open and fair process.

It’s important to remember, though, that this process still benefits from a human touch. And sometimes that takes the form of a little voice that says, “Hmmm, that’s strange.”