"I scored a goal in that game," the candidate
said.
"That's strange," I responded. "That was a 1–0
game, and I don't remember your name even being
on the roster."
"Yup, that was me. I scored the
game-winner," he replied.
My memory for some things may be challenged, but
not when it involves recall of the State Hockey
Championship Game during my senior year at
Melrose High School. We lost only three games
that year, each time to Arlington High, by scores of
4–2, 2–1, and 1–0. The last
came in the Eastern Massachusetts Finals, and I
was sure that Billy Hogan had scored the goal for
Arlington on a feed from Harry Howell.
My conversation with the candidate for the
controller's position with my client company had
progressed well. He was a man about my age, with a
solid resume. His responses to my interview
questions were a little glib, but generally on target.
Nevertheless, I had been trying to figure out why,
after more than four decades out of high school,
his career in finance had not really
developed.
Then he dropped the puck. Our casual comparison of
growing up in Arlington and Melrose had led to the
hockey rivalry, a subject which I covered thoroughly
as the Sports Editor of the Melrose Free Press.
The names of those Arlington guys — all of
them — came flashing back to me, and his
was not among them.
We wrapped up the interview and he left,
undoubtedly feeling he'd done well. My client was
impressed with him, but I told her that it was not to be.
What this candidate hadn't figured on was my
filing system. It took some significant digging
through the old boxes at home that night, but I found
what I was looking for — my story of the game,
44 years earlier. Not only had the candidate not
scored, the accompanying program showed that
he wasn't even on the team!
My client and I decided that if we scraped the surface
off his resume, we'd find that we were dealing with a
con artist, so we terminated his candidacy.
The file boxes of the twenty-first century are
computers, and the attic of contemporary history is
Google (recently supplemented by FaceBook). But
even as inclusive (and intrusive) as the Web may be,
it's tough to connect all of the dots in an
employment candidate's personal history.
For employees in accounting and finance, however,
personal fiscal responsibility is the critical
element, measured by the
absence of things like:
- Forced account closings
- Late bill payments
- Collection accounts
- Profit and loss write-offs
- Defaulted loans
- High credit card debt relative to income
- Bankruptcy filings
- Foreclosures
- Tax liens
- Civil judgments
The Big Three of Consumer Reporting Agencies
(CRAs) are Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax, and each of
them compiles this type of information, accessible (for
a fee) to banks, brokerages, retailers, insurers, credit
card companies — any user which has a
permissible purpose under the Fair Credit
Reporting Act (FCRA) to obtain a consumer report.
Listed among these is "employment purposes,"
including hiring and promotion decisions, where the
consumer has given written permission. However,
no person or entity may obtain a consumer report
from a CRA unless the person has certified to the
CRA the permissible purpose(s) for which the report
is being obtained and certifies that the report will not
be used for any other purpose.
Combined with the FCRA requirement that users
must notify consumers (including employees) when
they take "adverse actions" such as denying
employment or promotion on the basis of such
reports, this can be a major hassle. In such cases,
users must identify the company that provided the
report, so that the accuracy and completeness of the
report may be verified or contested by the consumer.
No wonder, thought I, that none of my small company
clients has pursued employment screening. It's just
too bureaucratic and time-consuming.
Then I visited a few days ago with Stephanie Yang,
Vice President of Credit Bureau Associates –
Northeast, Inc. (CBAN) in North Andover, MA. She
confirmed my concerns, saying that in the 15 years
that she's been in the business, it has become ever
more highly regulated, to the best interests of both
the consumer and the corporation. At the same time,
the amount of data being maintained is voluminous,
just 20 years after at least some of it was still being
maintained on hand-written cards in file tubs.
As an agent of the Big Three, CBAN is allowed to
accept corporate clients only after they have been
vetted through an approval process which includes a
set-up fee and an on-site visit. However, once
that process, which usually takes a week, is
complete, pre-employment credit screening —
usually at much less than the cost of a Monster board
posting — can be handled routinely using
permission formats provided by the agency. Most
often, reporting occurs within minutes.
There's a ton of misrepresentation and outright fraud
in the employment world. Very few employers avoid
the effects for very long. But there is also a ton of
information available to provide a negative
indication. With a modest investment of time and
money — especially relative to the cost of a
dishonest employee in a fiduciary role —
managers have little excuse for skipping the integrity
check.
After all, the reminder is right there, on every
piece of U.S. paper currency. For these purposes,
read it as: "In God [Only] We Trust."
