Mind Your Business News

In This Issue

• Welcome to the MYB News!!!
• MYB Blog
• TIPS FROM THE TOP
• Weekly News Updates
• Burn, Shred & Pulverize
• Safe Harbor Earned
• Introducing Heidi Griffin
• Contact Info

Welcome to the MYB News!!!

Please use this newsletter as a way of keeping abreast of the latest events with your background screening company. You will also find an article in each edition featuring tips from our criminal research and/or verifications departments. We hope you enjoy this newsletter and we welcome any ideas for content or suggestions for improvement.

This newsletter is a great way to communicate some feedback to you, our customers! We want you to know we highly value your business and truly enjoy the work we do for you. However, sometimes this work gets frustrating and we are asking you for your assistance. Ultimately, you will be the ones to benefit as the end result of what we do is returned to you!

MYB Blog is now active!

MYB now has it's own blog! Please visit this blog for the most up to date information about what MYB has been working on! Take a look at the new MYB Blog

News of the Week

New look to the website

We are implementing major aesthetic changes to the website. During this phase we may have some unexpected behavior with the website. If you experience any sort of difficulty during the transitional phase or at any other time please contact our onsite Web Support

If you need directions to our physical location you can now follow a link on the contact page to google maps.

Fake Resumes and Documents

As a valued client, we want to ensure your trust in our ability to distinguish forged documents, fraudulent records and fake resumes. Recently the news agencies have covered a company that is producing fake company information and education institutions to assist job seekers in padding their resumes. One such company is CareerExcuses.com. They help desperate job applicants make up phony job histories including the “employer†name, dates of employment, title and more. Then they provide a phone number where someone answers to the made up company name and provides a fake verification of employment or reference.

Mind Your Business, Inc has created a standard procedure to ensure that all employment information listed are valid and real and that the verifications that we get are legitimate. Fraudulent companies are reported to you.

Mind Your Business, Inc validates contact information for each employer and school prior to calling on them. Our process includes the use of a reverse lookup of the provided phone number and an internet search by company name, city and state on the Web, Secretary of State directories, and Dun & Bradstreet-Hoovers site. Companies creating fake business names and numbers are not likely to get those names listed in legitimate business databases such as these. Hoovers, for instance, develops listings this way:

The Hoover's Web site features a database of information on more than 30 million corporations and organizations, and more than 35 million people. The company is a subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). Users of this site can obtain detailed information about registered companies that is collected by third-party publishers through multiple sources, including public company financials and trade records; public records such as business registrations and government registries.

A determined scam artist with enough time and money can create the appearance of a legitimate company but these organizations are not charging enough to go to that kind of trouble. In fact, their potential effect may even be exaggerated. William Schmidt, founder of CareerExcuse.com, in an article written for SHRM (Jan. 2010/Leonard), reported he had sold his services to about 60 subscribers as of November 2009. Nonetheless we take such threats to the integrity of the verification process very seriously.

Making a concerted effort to independently validate contact information for each and every verification and reference entrusted to us is just part of an overall approach we take to ensuring the accuracy of the results we obtain. Our referencing team checks out each company not recognized as a major corporation that we deal with on a continual basis through these corroboration procedures to ensure that you are getting the best information available.

If you would like more information on the policies and practices of MYB, please contact me.
Thank you for your continued business. Regards,

TIPS FROM THE TOP

Hiring the right person for the position is critical to the success of your company and a measurable goal for all HR Support Departments. Outsourcing verifications is one way our clients have recognized as valuable to their hiring process. Help us help you! We want to eliminate unnecessary frustrations we all may encounter from time to time, so I have created the tips below to help us all do that!

Before sending applications to MYB, please review the application to ensure all information is complete. By complete, we mean that employers phone numbers and address information is supplied. At minimum, please make sure the city and state are noted. Try to imagine searching for information about a company and not even knowing what state to look in.

Also, if your applicant reports that the employment was temporary or on a project basis, please ask for the agency the applicant was employed through. An applicant working through Adecco is going to have an employment record with Adecco, not with the company where he/she was placed. If the applicant was an Independent Contractor, we must have the name of a contact person as many companies do not maintain records of these contractors.

Many companies maintain employment records for a set number of years based on state employment laws or company policy. If your applicant worked somewhere ten years ago, or more, please make sure the name of the supervisor or manager is noted on the application. This person may be able to verify this employment based on "memory".

If the applicant is aware that a former employer has closed or has merged with another company, please ask the applicant to provide this information. If possible, please ask the applicant to provide the name of the company that acquired the closed company.

If the applicant received a college degree at an international school, please supply a copy of the degree for verification. We deal with institutions in other countries, but with fraud so rampant these days, they are very hesitant to cooperate. In some instances, we cannot even locate the institution by the names that have been given by the applicant. The document may have identifying agents on it that the applicant omitted, such as other names or translated names. It may even have an affiliation with another school that we are able to locate.

Please send a copy of the application and/or resume, even if you do your own data entry. Sometimes information is transposed or misspelled and these documents serve as a source for further research.

Using the Automated System

Many companies have outsourced employment records to third party verification systems. These systems will provide dates of employment and job title using the applicant's social security number and employer code. In order to obtain salary information, the applicant must supply a "salary key". If you are requesting salary verification, please ask your applicant if they have generated a "salary key" with any of their former employers.

There are times when companies refer us to use these automated systems, but there are no records found for your applicant. Never fear!!! MYB does not accept this as the final result. We will contact the Human Resources and/or Payroll Department at the Corporate Office and make a request for a second look. It is only then that we will note that there is "no record found".

Please remember that MYB has additional services available, such as supervisor interviews and/or personal reference interviews that are more in-depth and comprehensive. Following are the questions we ask of former supervisors and of personal acquaintances, co-workers, neighbors, etc?

• Please use three adjectives to describe the applicant.
• What was the applicant's general character / personality like?
• How did the applicant handle stress and time pressures?
• Did the applicant have any problems with tardiness or absenteeism?
• Was the applicant involved in any incidents involving substance abuse or workplace violence?
• Would you describe this applicant as a "leader" or a "follower"? Can you think of an example of when the applicant has demonstrated this trait?
• How would you rate the applicant's integrity level? (1 = lowest to 10 = highest)

We are not 100% successful when conducting supervisor interviews as many companies have policies in place not to release this information. However, MYB does ask for off the record comments if met with resistance, or will ask the supervisor to call back when not on company time. Also, if an applicant lists a former supervisor as a "personal" reference, this changes the context of the interview. If you are interested in this more thorough report, please contact us for information and pricing.

Heidi Griffin

Heidi received train the trainer urine collector certification from Alcohol and Drug Abuse Testing Centers, Inc. (ASATC) ADATC is owned by Jon Speckman who has over 20 years experience in the drug testing industry. Heidi has trained the collection staff at Mind Your Business, Inc. and our entire collection staff is now compliant with DOT collection requirements as well as all DHHS mandatory guidelines.

We are able to provide our clients with a broad range of drug testing services in including DOT, non-regulated, urine, saliva and hair testing. We are able to offer onsite collection servies as well as in house collections in Hendersonville NC. The drug screening services are offered either as a stand alone product or as part of a comprehensive background testing service.

Her certificates may be viewed below:
certificate
trainer

Burn, Shred & Pulverize

In compliance with the Disposal Rule of FACTA (Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003) MYB disposes of all proprietary information monthly utilizing on-site shredding. On November 30 2009 in an effort to become a green company MYB has switched all incoming faxes to a secure electronic storage using less paper hardcopies, in an effort to be a more environmentally responsible company.