Do you have what it takes to make the right recruitment decisions?

Background screening during the ‘great resignation’

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Do you know who you’re about to hire? Iain Murray of Sterling Backcheck talks to Canadian HR Reporter about the importance of making the right recruitment choices

Recruitment reflections In the midst of the “great resignation” and other cross-industry aftershocks from COVID-19, recruitment can already feel like a fraught and complicated process. But what happens when – as a potential employer – you’ve seemingly overcome the obstacles of finding a great candidate and you’re about to issue a job offer? What happens when you want to be extra-sure you’re hiring the perfect person for the job? This is where the background check comes in – the tried-and-tested method for really knowing who you’re hiring and making the most informed decision.

As a global leader in background and identity services, Sterling Backcheck can help provide everything a business needs to hire with confidence. With a vision to make the world a safer place, it knows people make the difference – in the workplace, in hospitals, on the road, and in schools, to name a few. Empowering organizations to make smarter, faster, safer hiring decisions through advanced technology, accuracy, and industry-leading turnaround time, Sterling provides the foundation of trust and safety employers need to create great environments for their most essential resource, people.

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CHECKING OUT THE STERLING STATS

Number of background checks done by Sterling annually

“Best practices do have to be standardized across the board … but the types of checks you're doing must also match the risk profile that you see for a role”

Iain Murray, Sterling Backcheck

Checks and balances When it comes to the services that organizations include when going for a background check, there are probably four or five that are most common, says Iain Murray, senior advisor for trust and safety at screening experts Sterling Backcheck. “The criminal record check is the standard – included about 95 percent of the time. Then you will see other traditional ones like reference interviews, education, and employment verification – essentially just reading the resumé and making sure that everything the applicant is claiming is authentic,” he says. “From our perspective, the ‘great resignation’ appears more like a ‘great reorganization,’ as candidates’ priorities have changed since the pandemic. We see people changing jobs to prioritize flexibility and work-life balance. For background screening, it means a lot of new candidates, a diverse pool of applicants, and employers searching for additional ways to determine 'fit'."

Market matters The insurance market for nonprofits was equally difficult last year. “We have seen a hard market combined with the pandemic, and large losses in certain classes made it very challenging,” Sree says, although she notes that pricing has stabilized and auto claims are down. Pamela Davis, CEO of Nonprofits Insurance Alliance (NIA), describes the market over the past year as “kind of two different worlds. From our perspective, we’ve grown last year. We grew about 25%, which is unheard of for a 30-year-old organization. So, we saw a market where commercial insurance companies really turned their backs on the nonprofit sector, turning away what I would consider to be very good

“Adding social media screening to traditional background checks has really picked up in popularity due to many employees’ online presence, [what with] things they're putting out there that likely aren't reflecting well upon the organizational brand. Events like the Capitol Riots on January 6 [2021] in the US and the recent ‘Freedom Convoy’ occupation in Ottawa are putting employers on high alert regarding their employees’ activities that may be linked to their brand inadvertently,” Murray says. There will, of course, be additional factors when considering more niche industries – such as driver abstracts – so, to what extent can organizations create a one-size-fits-all screening model, and to what extent is a more tailored screening approach essential? “That's a really good question,” says Murray. “You shouldn’t really cherry-pick person by person, and the types of checks you perform on candidates should be consistent and match the risk profile that you see for a role.” “Truck drivers or school bus drivers would be a good example [of specific checks] in transportation. If applicants are applying for a financial position, they may find themselves subject to credit checks. And if someone is running for political office, it stands to reason that the party would like to delve into [that person’s] public social media presence and make sure that person is not, for example, invoking hate speech or saying something that would reflect negatively upon the party. There are definitely some nuances like that.”

Capture the flag With over 30 years at the top of the screening industry, Sterling Backcheck has carried out enough of these run-throughs to know a red flag when it sees one. “With education or employment verifications,” says Murray, “it could be that the candidate is exaggerating their claims. Maybe they're stretching the dates of previous employment, or claiming that they were a chief financial officer when they were [actually] in a maintenance role. We see a lot of cases where candidates would claim to have finished a degree, but maybe they only attended [university] for a year.

“People deserve a second chance … and I think that's the way companies have really come around to looking at things over the past decade or so”

Iain Murray, Sterling Backcheck

“We’ll provide a report on the applicant, but we won't provide any subjective feelings into it. We're just objectively brokering this information to the organization so that they can make a hiring decision based on their policy – and, depending on the organization and their threshold for risk, that decision can change quite a bit.” This is where one of the most truly interesting dynamics about background screening comes into play: whether or not a “misstep” on a record should be enough to stop a candidate from being employed.

The power of context We’re all human, after all, and everyone has made mistakes. To what extent can this ethos be used, though, when an organization may need to take a detached, dispassionate slant? According to Murray, such decisions are increasingly forgiving – it’s more about taking a bigger-picture approach to the background check than focusing on one smaller aspect. “When I started in this business 15 years ago,” he says, “the mere existence of a criminal record might make someone ineligible for a position in the eyes of the recruiter, and that never sat well with me. Let’s use the example of marijuana possession before that was decriminalized or legalized. An applicant might have a record for possession from 20 years ago but, ideally, [that] should only be used to sway an employment decision if the offence is recent and relevant.” A good test? When it comes to criminal record checks, look at how recent and relevant the offence is to the role at hand, and whether it would be harmful to the brand if that same offence were committed again today, says Murray. “Would it be harmful to your customers? Would it be harmful to colleagues within the company? Say someone has a DUI from 20 years ago, but they’re going to be working in an office, not driving kids around in a school bus. That's clearly not relevant to their role and shouldn't preclude them from employment. People deserve a second chance … and most companies have really come around to looking at things that way over the past decade or so.”

WHEN COSTS GO UNCHECKED

Sterling's global client base

47,000+

Percentage of Fortune 100 companies that choose Sterling

50%

89 million+

Checking ahead It's clear that Murray and the team at Sterling Backcheck are hugely invested in making background screening an accountable, fair, and thorough process that benefits both employer and (potential) employee alike. But what is it about the Sterling Backcheck approach that really makes the difference? And how will the company continue its dedication in a changing future? “We take our leadership role in the industry very seriously, and emphasize compliance a great deal,” says Murray. “Some organizations offer a one-size fits all ‘global’ search, but it’s not adequately comprehensive. It’s more of a mile-wide, inch-deep type of background check that won’t capture relevant criminal history, given the way records are stored and accessed in each country. There are also different laws pertaining to data security and what searches are permitted for certain roles in each country, and we help ensure potential employers are aware of their obligations, protecting personal information and performing appropriate and thorough screens in each region.”

Hiring the wrong person can ultimately cost a company up to 24 times the person's salary

Annual shortfall caused by employee fraud: $400 billion

Percentage of job applications believed to contain fraudulent information: c. 78%

Source: Screen & Reveal

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