41 NYC Council members want to end this pre-employment practice

bill to ban credit checks during pre-employment background screening, unless credit checks are required by federal or state law. Council member Brad Lander sponsored the bill — called the Stop Credit Discrimination in Employment Act — which argues that credit checks are more likely to screen out black and Hispanic applicants, even though there is…

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EEOC criminal background checks: Will the government organization be forced to disclose its policies?

In October, we published a post about the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s current battles with BMW Manufacturing and Dollar General, in which the two companies requested that the government organization share its own policies for conducting EEOC criminal background checks. The EEOC refused, arguing that its own policies have nothing to do with either of…

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Don’t put all your eggs in one database when it comes to background checks

In their editorial, Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers and California Rep. Adam B. Schiff stated that all volunteers and potential hires working in these types of positions should be screened through the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Rogers and Schiff described the FBI fingerprint database as “the most robust criminal background check [system] available” and…

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No Bad Santa: Background checks prevent problems for employers, parents alike

Many retail stores are already busting out the holiday music and cheery decór, and retailers and organizations are already going about hiring holiday helpers. While any business would do well to screen its holiday help — after all, businesses are more likely to be robbed by employees than shoplifters — it’s a different story altogether…

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Federal government implemented background check changes over past 12 months

Since last October, the federal government has made big strides in reforming the way that it conducts background checks on its employees and contractors. The single biggest change was that the government fired the background screening company that had been performing about 40 percent of its investigations, or about 21,000 background investigations each month. That…

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Why you should hire a screening service for pre employment background screening

A lawsuit was filed back in July 2013 against Swift Transportation of Arizona for improper pre employment background screening practices. The class-action suit was filed by several truck drivers, including James Ellis III, who complained that Swift Transportation violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by failing to disclose that credit checks and criminal record checks…

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Care facility’s negligent hiring puts residents at risk

A Chippewa Falls, Wis., mental health care facility was discovered to have a convicted sex offender in its employ, five months after the man had begun working at the facility as an environmental services coordinator. Lake Hallie Memory Care had hired the offender in April 2013 before a criminal background check had returned results. His…

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Don’t be bamboozled by resume fraud

fired a state drug lab analyst who did not have the chemistry degree her resume claimed. The department says that she underwent a pre-employment background screening, but the falsification was not caught. Which begs the question, if a background check doesn’t turn up anything, how can you be sure that the people you hire have…

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How to verify a potential employee’s work history

Find a Service The first step in conducting any form on pre-employment screening, such as a  background check, is to choose the service with whom you’ll be working. Wouldn’t simply calling a candidate’s references be easier than hiring a service? Perhaps, but if you do, you run the risk of contacting someone who may have…

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