HR Background Checks: Where does your info go?

HR Background Checks: Where does your info go?

Introduction

backgound checksWhen you grant employers permission to run background checks and credit checks on you, where does all that confidential information go?

Last year we asked Does Human Resources go too far? Now, a subscriber who is an HR professional suggests that Pandora’s Box has been opened. He points out that in their zeal to protect themselves and their companies, HR departments may be covering up illegitimate and possibly illegal practices.

When HR outsources background checks and investigations of candidates, is HR merely doing its job, or is it ensuring plausible deniability while letting loose an investigative demon that systematically violates people’s privacy and feeds the specter of identity theft? Does HR go too far when screening job candidates? Hold onto your seats. We’re about to take a rough ride through a nasty landscape.

I’m not disclosing our insider HR executive’s name for obvious reasons. I cannot confirm every claim he makes, but we spoke and I find him credible. If some of his insider claims seem farfetched, I’d love to hear any rebuttals. Here’s what he has to say.

An HR insider speaks up

Regrettably, all these [background investigation] procedures and processes are advocated by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), as reading its web site will reveal. And, just as regrettably, many HR people fall right in line, like little ducklings swimming behind the mother duck of SHRM. It’s the latest rage, and every HR person wants to be a part of it.

Background checks galore

With thousands of people applying for each job and the jobless rate for skilled and white-collar workers at a recent all-time high, the applicants, like sheep being led to the slaughter, will subject themselves to almost any practice and jump through almost any hoop to get a job. The theory is that any job is better than no job.

The background-check processes are, the majority of the time, being outsourced to security companies that have turned these processes into a lucrative business:

  • background checks
  • personality testing
  • criminal checks
  • educational checks
  • military service checks
  • employment verification
  • reference verification
  • credit checks
  • drug testing
  • searches into legal agreements
  • scanning of your phone records
  • scanning of your Internet activities and e-mail
  • and so on.

This total invasion of privacy beyond your wildest dreams (actually, nightmares) is outsourced. The worst part is that much of the data and information these outsourced security agents collect is erroneous.

Have you been checked without knowing?

HR will narrow the list of candidates down, and then turn the outsourced security investigators loose on that list. Background checks are often done before the first interview, and before any sort of an agreement, authorization, or disclosure is signed by the job applicant.

You will never know about it until you order a copy of your credit report and find all the inquiries (that’s the first sign) and wonder, who in the devil is that who has run checks on you?

The larger outsourced security and investigative companies have started keeping databases of their own. One advertises they have a database of over 1.5 million people for employers to run their candidates against. If you have signed one disclosure for one employer, the investigations company that did the checks will keep the information about you in their database and then just re-sell the results to their next client.

Do you know where your background checks are?

They start with a name and phone number and e-mail address from a resume or application. Then, they cross-reference information until they get a date of birth or social security number and go from there. When an applicant walks into HR for that first meeting, they already may have been investigated. Never mind that much of the data gathered may be erroneous. The “data” was gathered at arm’s length, but the employer will treat it as absolute fact.

Security and background checking has become a lucrative business. The outsourced investigators are starting to sell that information amongst themselves, expanding their databases and increasing their profit margins. The shuffling around of this data only makes its accuracy even more questionable.

This is an industry that is almost totally unregulated. The multiple levels of outsourcing and subcontracting yield enough plausible deniability to the companies themselves, and their clients, that abuses run rampant.

Nick’s comments

The statement above was submitted to Ask The Headhunter unsolicited. I’m grateful for the permission to publish it. Once again, I cannot present it as fact — but I have encountered examples of many of the claims. If anyone in the investigations business would like to comment on these allegations, please do so below or feel free to contact me. This is worth discussing and researching further.

Where is the accountability in background checks?

When HR asks you to provide information that is confidential to you, or to sign permission for your background to be investigated, or to waive liability if your confidential information is leaked or misused, HR must be accountable to you. Whether or not we have hard evidence of abuse, I am convinced there is a serious problem with this part of the hiring process at many companies.

While some employers may be innocent, we need to ask whether they are being responsible. Others are overstepping the bounds of what is legitimate and ethical – and possibly legal — when conducting aggressive background checks on job candidates. Worse, employers may be putting you at risk because they presume to entrust sensitive information about you to third parties with whom they have only an arm’s-length relationship. Where is the accountability?

Do you know how your confidential information is being used?

Job applicants need to be aware of the risks they take when divulging information about themselves – any information. It seems that even your name, address and phone number might be enough to allow an employer’s investigator to access every nook and cranny of your life without your knowledge. If the law is being circumvented, then the law needs to be enforced – or our legislators need to start working on laws that will protect our privacy.

In this day of heightened sensitivity to security, it’s important to recognize that the problem lies not in checking people out. The problem lies in unethical, unwarranted and possibly illegal procedures conducted at arm’s-length from employers by third parties. In some cases, there’s a cascade: An employer outsources reference checks to Service A, which in turn outsources criminal and credit checks to Service B and Service C. (Read about one third-party investigations company that’s so “arm’s-length” it conducts automated background checks.) Who’s accountable — the independent investigative service, or the employer?

Time out for questions

A responsible employer should have good answers to these questions, and a job candidate should not hesitate to ask any of them before submitting even a resume. If this list seems over the top, perhaps it is. I think every item is legit, but you must decide which ones are important to you.

  1. What kinds of checks does the employer conduct? Are they legal?
  2. Is the candidate notified in advance and given the opportunity to decline to be investigated? Is the permission form clear and easy to understand?
  3. Who is conducting the checks — the employer, or a subcontractor who in turn subcontracts the investigations to yet another firm?
  4. What information is gathered? How is its accuracy determined? How valid and reliable is it?
  5. Does the candidate have an opportunity to review and confirm or contest the information?
  6. Is the information secure? Who has access to it? Is there a risk of identity theft?
  7. Who owns the information and what rights do they have to it?
  8. Is the information maintained in data bases not directly controlled by the employer? For how long?
  9. Is the information made available to any other parties at any time for any reason? Is the information re-used or sold?
  10. Does the candidate have the power to limit or rescind rights they have granted for use of the information?
  11. What responsibility and liability does the HR department accept regarding the collection and use of your private information?
  12. Last and most important, is the employer prepared to sign an agreement to protect you and your private information?

What are the risks if you apply for a job without answers to these questions?

Time for less invasive practices

Maybe the biggest question we’re left with is the one we originally asked: Does HR go too far when screening candidates? It seems that HR routinely abuses the job seeker’s frame of mind — often that of a terrified supplicant — when it indiscriminately demands all plus the bathroom sink before it consents “to proceed with your application.”

Does anyone seriously contend that HR doesn’t ask for more private information than it really needs? Having immense power over relatively helpless applicants is no justification for unnecessarily abusing them. I’ll echo our HR insider’s implied challenge to the SHRM: When’s the last time your august group recommended less invasive practices?

Until HR owns up to its responsibilities, maybe the job seeker’s best protection is to lay their own confidentiality agreement on the table – and decline to divulge anything until the employer signs it and makes itself accountable.

What’s your experience with background checks when you apply for a job? Have you encountered any of the issues our insider enumerates? If you work in HR, can you confirm or deny what he presents? What can job hunters do to protect themselves?

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Control what your professional references will say

Control what your professional references will say

Question

professional referencesI’m in the final phase of getting a job offer I really want. They already told me what the offer is, but they need to check my references before they deliver it in writing. I know my professional references are good but how do I really know what a former boss or colleague is going to say? Your advice will affect whose names I give out. Thanks.

Nick’s Reply

You know what your references will say by controlling it in advance. You’d never go to a job interview without being prepared. So, why would you let your references talk to an employer without preparing them?

Having checked thousands of references — always on the phone, never via e-mail — I’ve found that most are bleah at best. A bad reference is rare and a superlative reference is uncommon. But without a lot of prompting from me, a candidate’s references usually have little to say. They’re unprepared.

How your professional references can hurt you

This is bad for two reasons. First, an unprepared reference comes off as unenthusiastic. Enthusiasm about the candidate in question is paramount in a reference check. An awful lot of insight and information about a candidate is folded into the way their references speak about them.

Second, uninspiring comments about a candidate can count against them; for example, if other problems arise with your candidacy, there needs to be some countervailing fervor. If a reference can’t speak enthusiastically about the candidate, I’ll go with a candidate whose references can.

Here’s the tragedy. People get rated #2 or #3 in highly competitive interviews not because they lack necessary qualities, but because their references aren’t prepared to deliver clear, compelling opinions about them.

Control what your references will say about you

Don’t lose a job offer because of your references. To pull this off, you must select professional references that will launch you into the new job you want. How do you choose whose names to submit? Well, you need to know what they’re going to say, right?

The robo-reference problem
What if an employer wants your references to fill out online forms or to talk to a robot, rather than take a call? See Before you risk your references.
The best way to control what your references will say is to coach them!

I’m going to offer a few observations and suggestions about how to control — yes, control — your references. I don’t mean manipulate; I mean prepare them to deliver opinions and comments that will make an employer want to hire you. There is nothing dishonest or underhanded about this. We’re going to exploit some simple laws of psychology. We’re going to prepare your references to do their best for you.

How to prepare your professional references

1. Call them
When you need a former boss or co-worker to step up and deliver a warm, enthusiastic endorsement for you, don’t make the request via e-mail. Make your request just as warm and personal. Use the phone. This is critical because only a conversation will enable you to control what they say. Of course, you must start by asking if they’d be willing to give you a reference. If they agree, tell them who is going to call, and very briefly outline the job you want.

2. Help them remember
When an employer calls, most references are taken by surprise. They’re in the middle of something else. They’re not thinking about you and your time working together. That’s why you need to call them first, to remind them what made you a great employee and to prepare them about the job you want. (If you have a solid relationship with the person, this is where you can disclose what you’re doing. “To be frank, I know how busy you are. I figured that recapping our work together might help with the reference call.”)

3. Say it out loud
Here’s a fun fact from the world of cognitive psychology: People remember better when they write something down or say it out loud first. More important, in this case, is that people also tend to repeat what they’ve already said or heard. So, when you ask your former co-worker or boss to serve as a  reference, recount your past experiences together out loud. Trust me: They are then likely to parrot the words from your conversation to the employer that calls them. This is how you’ll know in advance what they are most likely to say.

4. Recount successes
Ask if they remember a successful project you worked on together. Say this: “I know we faced some challenges, but I’m proud of how we did X, Y and Z.” Ask what they remember about it. Guide your discussion so they will recount out loud (a) what your contribution was, (b) how you did it, and (c) how it paid off. Let them say it so they can hear it.

5. Map skills
Briefly suggest which of your skills (that were so valuable to your old employer) will map onto the new job you want, and how they will pay off to the new employer. Then…

6. Ask for advice and insight
Briefly describe the challenges of the new job. Ask your colleague’s advice about which of your skills might contribute to your success. Ask how they suggest you should approach it.

7. What did you do best?
Help the colleague express out loud what you did best at your old job.

8. What would make you a better worker?
Ask this: “If you could give my new boss some advice about how to help me perform better, what would you say?” (This is a subtle way of influencing the answer to the infamous reference checker’s question, “What are this person’s weaknesses?”)

Prepare your professional references

As we’ve said, you prepare for your job interviews, so prepare your references for a reference call. People parrot what they hear. Help your references parrot themselves. Gently make them say it. Helping them say it out loud to you helps them remember it for the reference call.

Don’t expect to do everything I’ve suggested! Just what you’re most comfortable with and what there’s time for. And of course, there is no guarantee any of this will work — but it’s the best way I know to have some measure of control over your references. Don’t forget to thank your reference for their kind help, for taking a trip down memory lane, and for taking time to speak with who you hope will be your next employer.

Finally, say this: “If I can ever return the favor, don’t hesitate to call me.”

Objections?

Now I’ll try to anticipate a couple of objections you may have:

“I don’t feel comfortable doing this.”

Then why submit the person as a reference? Please think about it. If a former colleague is not likely to take a few minutes to discuss your experiences working together, do you really think they’ll help you get hired?

“I don’t have any references I know well enough to do what you suggest!”

This is a wake-up call. Start cultivating colleagues now, so you can count on their references in the future!

Do you have references you can count on? How did you cultivate them? How do you avoid awkwardness when requesting a reference? Has a reference ever torpedoed a job opportunity for you? Has a reference ever clearly tipped the scales to help you get hired? What tips would you add to the list above?

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Can they find out I was fired from my last job?

Can they find out I was fired from my last job?

A reader worries that getting fired means not being able to get a new job, in the August 18, 2020 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter.

Question

firedIf a person has been fired from their job, does a prospective new employer have the right to contact the old employer and ask the reason for the end of employment? I’ve heard previous employers can only state the dates of employment, compensation, and nothing else, but wasn’t sure if that was really true. This is assuming the firing is for general performance reasons and nothing egregious or illegal (something like embezzlement, drugs, or violence). Thank you.

Nick’s Reply

You should assume the new potential employer is going to find out, whether it has the right or not. Before I explain why, let’s check in with Mark Carey, an employment attorney and Guest Voices contributor on Ask The Headhunter.

Were you fired?

Mark’s advice would depend on the specifics of your case, which we don’t know. But these are his general comments:

The new employer may ask about the reasons for termination, but the old employer is only obligated to provide name, title, years of service and maybe salary. Employers do not offer the reason for termination, as they are in fear of two possible claims.

First, if they say something knowingly untruthful about the employee they may get sued for defamation.

Second, if the new company hires based on the representations made by older employer, the new employer may sue for negligent hire against old employer based on what those representations were.

There is also the confidentiality of personnel matters pursuant to state law, so the employer will want to avoid divulging such information.

Plan for the worst if you got fired

Even if such a question about why you were fired is not right or legal, the new employer might ask anyway and your old employer may tell too much. Your only recourse might be legal action, and few people are willing to go that far.

That’s why my advice is to assume the worst and prepare to deal with it. Take it for a given that the new employer can find out why you were fired. I know HR managers who have wide circles of contact in the HR community. They can use back channels — ethical or not — to call one or another HR buddy who might easily find out about you on the q.t. The same goes for recruiters. You’ll never know why you were rejected.

What will they say?

Since you’re asking whether the new employer can and will find out from your old employer whether you were fired, I’ll offer some suggestions about how to ascertain what the new employer knows.

Take a direct approach. Call your old company and ask HR and your boss what they intend to say on a reference call. They might not tell you, but why not ask anyway? At the very least, you will have put the company on notice that you’re concerned and watching them.

Along these lines, attorney Carey offers this caution:

An old employer may state to the new employer that they do not recommend you for re-hire, as code for “this was a bad employee and be warned.”

Check indirectly. Do you know a friendly manager at a company you’re applying to anyway? If they’re going to check with your last employer, would they be willing to share with you what they learn, as a friend? Be careful – don’t use a ruse to get this information.

This article might be helpful: How can you fight bad references?

Keep in mind that the manager who interviews you may have been fired and have some bad references of their own. Full disclosure that your old boss had an issue with you about X may land on sympathetic ears. In other words, take the wind out of that sail yourself.

What to do

Control the game. Whatever happens, you must be ready well in advance to counter any negative comments with positive recommendations. More here: The Preemptive Reference.

So my advice is not to concern yourself so much with what a new employer can legally ask or not ask your old employer, unless you’re willing to pay for a legal action. My advice is to change the game entirely.

Change the game. I believe the most compelling way to deal with a black mark on your record (whether it is deserved or not) is to help the new employer focus on something more important: evidence about how you would do the job profitably. Show the new employer that what you can do matters more than any reference does. More about that in this video from an interview I did on Bloomberg TV: Profit-based job hunting & hiring.

I wish you the best.

How do you deal with getting fired when you apply for a new job? Do you try to hide it? Do you come clean? Ever been busted for not disclosing it?

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References: How employers bungle a competitive edge

In the December 8, 2015 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a reader gets down on reference checking.

Question

I’ve come to the conclusion that asking for references is about the dumbest thing a company can do in the hiring process. First, I believe that any prior employer is only obligated to give the dates you worked and at what salary. They don’t like to give any qualitative assessment because there are potential liability issues involved. Second, who is going to give a personal reference that would not describe you in laudatory terms? I think references are just another personnel department make-work project! What do you think?

referencesNick’s Reply

One of the very best ways to size up a job candidate is to consider the opinions of her professional community. Employers who ignore peer review take unnecessary risks when hiring. But that’s where today’s reference-checking practices have led us.

Incompetent reference checking

Asking for references seems dumb because it has been made trivial; so trivial that companies routinely outsource reference checks rather than do it themselves. (See Automated Reference Checks: You should be very worried.) They’re going to judge you based on a routine set of questions that someone else asks a bunch of people on a list. How ludicrous is that?

Employers have bought into the idea that a reference check is like a credit check, but it’s not. A credit check digs up objective information: numbers, loan payment dates, defaults.

A reference check is largely subjective. The source of information isn’t a bricks-and-mortar bank that’s required to divulge facts about your accounts. A reference source is a mushy human being who may be in a good mood or a bad mood; who may know you well, or not. The reference checker must know the context — the industry, the profession, the work, the community — or he can’t possibly understand what to ask or what the comments really mean. This is why most reference checks are simply incompetent, if not dangerous.

reference-checkerThe “reference and investigations” industry may be able to turn up criminal records and such, but you can’t tell me that a researcher is going to elicit a subtle judgment of a job candidate by calling a name on a list. Worse, if the information that’s collected is erroneous, why would such a reference checker care? He’s not accountable to anyone. The employer that buys it doesn’t care and isn’t going to ask you to explain. To borrow a phrase, outsourcing reference checks is like washing your hands with rubber gloves on. If you’re going to feel anything, you must get your hands dirty!

Real reference checking

There is no finesse in reference checking any more — not for most employers. A real reference check is done quietly and responsibly, by talking to sources that a manager tracks down on her own by using her network of professional contacts. These are candid references; comments made off the record within a trusted professional relationship. That’s where you’ll find the true measure of a candidate.

Did I just break five laws? That’s only because the skeevy industry that has grown around reference investigations requires regulation. It’s because employers are no longer good at teasing apart credible references from spiteful or sugar-coated ones. They want to put the legal liability for making judgments of character and reputation on someone else.

There’s a better way to do it, and it’s time-honored among honorable businesspeople. The person doing the reference checking must be savvy and responsible. She must know what she’s doing. A greenhorn human resources clerk is out. In fact, the only person who should be doing such a check is the hiring manager. The most candid discussions will take place between managers who know their industry, their professional community, and the issues in their business. Where a manager might not open up to an “investigator,” she’s likely to share information with a peer. Credible, useful information comes from credible, trustworthy sources. You can’t buy it.

If it’s true that hiring the best people matters, then real reference checks give an employer a very powerful competitive edge. Outsource reference checks, or do them ineptly, and you’ve bungled your company’s future.

Reference checking is a community event

The reason — other than legal — that companies don’t do effective checks is that human resources (HR) departments simply don’t have the kinds of contacts in the professional community that could yield legitimate, credible references. And that brings into question HR’s entire role in the recruitment, selection and hiring process. If you don’t have good enough connections in the professional community to do that kind of reference check, how could you possibly recruit from that community? Both tasks require the exact same kind of contacts and relationships. It’s all about the employer’s network.

accountableJob hunters correctly worry that bad references might cost them a job. That’s a real problem. The question is, is the bad reference justified? If it is, then perhaps it should cost you a job. Don’t shoot the messenger. Take a good look at yourself, and recognize that the truth has consequences in your social and professional community. (But all is not lost. See How can you fight bad references?)

It should not be illegal to rely on credible opinions about you. By the same token, managers must be attuned to vengeful references, and take appropriate measures to verify them. But regulating candor is no solution. When we count on the law to protect us from all information, we must expect to get hurt by a lack of good information.

If I were to check your references, I’d get good, solid information about you. And I might not ever call anyone on the list you gave me. I’ll use my contacts to triangulate on your reputation. (You might be surprised at who I talk to. See The Ministry of Reference Checks.) Will someone try to torpedo you? Possibly, but it’s quite rare. More likely, I’ll turn something up that makes me want to get to know you better; to assess you more carefully.

The trouble is, good reference checks are rarely done. Hence, most reference information is pure garbage, as you suggest. And this hurts good workers just as it hurts good employers. In the end, all we have to go on is the opinion of our professional community. Stifle it, and the community suffers the consequences.


References are your competitive edge

References are such an important tool to help you land a job that I can’t emphasize enough that you must plan, prepare and use references to give you an edge. In Fearless Job Hunting, Book 3: Get In The Door (way ahead of your competition) I discuss just how strategic references are.

First, learn how to launch a reference:

“The best… reference is when a reputable person in your field refers you to an employer. In other words, the referrer ‘sends you’… to his peer and suggests she hire you.” (pp. 23-24)

Second, use preemptive references:

A “preemptive reference is one who, when the employer is ready to talk to references, calls the employer before being called. Such a call packs a powerful punch. It tells the employer that the reference isn’t just positive, it’s enthusiastic.” (p. 24)


The truth matters. Legislating against the opinions of others about us is, well, stupid. Far better to manage those opinions and to be responsible about them. If you’re a manager, it’s also far better to take responsibility and check applicants’ references yourself. Don’t let HR do it. What do references really mean?

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