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A Little Background on Background Checks
Jun 13Sure, you do background checks on employees. Or do you? I’ve known of a few people in HR and HR consulting who had some pretty questionable elements on their resumes, let alone regular employees. A famous flareout came when Radio Shack CEO David Edmondson admitted lying on his resume about earning a degree he didn’t have. (Lying about academic degrees seems like a pretty common, albeit easy to verify, “error” on resumes.)
That’s why I thought an article on The Consumerist called Do a Background Check On Yourself made so much sense. Potential employees can check to make sure that their records are correct, and boneheads who chose to lie about their backgrounds can do it at their own peril. The article says:
Companies can order all sorts of reports on you and make judgments about you, from banks, to landlords to employers. Here’s how you can see the data they’re seeing and make sure the record is right.
There are lots of valuable resources listed in one easy-to-access place.
About the Author
Frank Roche
Frank started IFRACTAL over 7 years ago with Sarah Chambers. Together, they've created HR communications and HR software for some of the world's leading companies. Frank is also studying Flamenco guitar and origami.
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One of my former employers used to have us verify EVERYTHING. In my 6 years there we may have had 3 or 4 folks lie about their degree. One candidate, who came highly recommended by an employee, stated he achieved a degree that I was unable to verify. When I asked him, he said, I only had one last class to take, not even related to this job in question, and figured it was as good as having the degree. Yes, I replied, but the bigger issue is that you falsified your credentials, and we rely on our employees to have integrity. He would have been perfect for the job, but didn’t get it because of this “rounding error.”
Meg, it always amazes me that people lie about that kind of stuff that’s so easy to verify. That’s a great story about the “rounding error.” That’s a first for me; I’d never heard that term applied to resumes and degrees. That’s just brilliant!
No need to make this stuff up; truth is almost always stranger than fiction!
We had another young man who, when we informed him that he failed his pre-employment drug screening exam, coming up positive for cannabinoids, replied, I was driving but my friends were smoking – it was second-hand smoke! Interestingly, this guy was actually the son of an employee, so that was a really fun conversation to have.
It is actually a very smart thing to do a background check on yourself. Before others, you should know exactly who you are- on record. This is for your safety as well, because you do not want any errors on record.