By Jared Callahan, Employment Screening Resources

Employment Screening Resources (ESR), a leading national employment screening firm, announced completion of its integration with Taleo Business Editionâ„¢. This new integration provides a simplified, paperless technology solution to perform legally compliant employment background checks.

Taleo Business Edition(c)  is the leading on-demand talent management solution for companies with up to 5,000 employees. Taleo Business Edition helps small to mid-size organizations around the world find, develop and retain top talent by simplifying recruiting, performance and compensation management with unmatched flexibility.

The integration of Taleo Business Edition and Employment Screening Resources allows employers to initiate a completely paperless background checks with the click of a mouse, allowing for the fastest possible turn-around time with the least amount of effort. Featuring single sign-on and the ability to view report status in real-time, employers, HR departments and recruiters can leverage the Taleo solution with the latest legally-compliant background screening technology.

Employment Screening Resources (ESR) is the firm that literally wrote the book on background checks, The Safe Hiring Manual, and provides pre-employment screening services and drug testing internationally. The firm specializes in legal compliance expertise, as well as industry-leading technology, service, accuracy and turn-around.

“Through the Taleo Business Edition integration, Employment Screening Resources can provide the most advanced and legally compliant screening solutions to our mutual clients,” commented Jared Callahan, Director of Marketing for ESR, and a national speaker on topics related to safe hiring. “Employers can harness this advanced technology and no longer need to handle physical pieces of paper, go to different software systems or worry about legal compliance.”

About Employment Screening Resources: Employment Screening Resources (ESR), is a safe hiring partner and provides REAL background checks, not cheap database shortcuts or off-shoring that endangers privacy. ESR specializes in legal compliance and provides industry leading technology, service, accuracy and turnaround. Contact: Jared Callahan for additional information at 415-898-0044 or by email jcallahan@ESRcheck.com.

By Les Rosen, Employment Screening Resources

From the mailbox:  Does Minnesota have any laws that prevent an employer from obtaining or using criminal records? 

Answer:  A number of states have very specific state rules about obtaining and using criminal records.  Employment Screening Resources  (ESR) maintains it’s own proprietary 50 state guide that is available to ESR clients. 

Minnesota passed a law in 2009 that gave empowers some protection when hiring someone with a criminal record.  Essentially, the law provides that information about the criminal history of an employee or past employee cannot be used against an employer in a civil action if:

1) the duties of the position of employment did not expose others to a greater degree of risk than that created by the employee or former employee interacting with the public outside of the duties of the position or that might be created by being employed in general;

(2) before the occurrence of the act giving rise to the civil action, a court order sealed any record of the criminal case or the employee or former employee received a pardon; or

(3) the record is of an arrest or charge that did not result in a criminal conviction.

See:  https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=181.981 

If an employer, for example, was sued for negligent hiring, this statue potentially affords some additional protection if the terms of the law are satisfied.  Such a statue can encourage employers to hire applicants who otherwise may have had difficulty obtaining employment.

The Minnesota Department of Human Rights has also given guidance on hiring and the use of criminal records.  Minnesota is among a number of states with Human Rights agencies that have set forth guidelines for legal and non-discriminatory hiring practices.  According to the agency:

While not prohibiting the inquiry, courts have held that barring job applicants because of an arrest and/or criminal conviction record may have a statistically significant, adverse impact on members of racial or ethnic minority groups. An employer’s hiring policy regarding criminal convictions may be held to be discriminatory when, absent a bona fide occupational qualification, a minority-group member’s criminal conviction record is an absolute bar to employment, provided that a statistically significant adverse impact is shown within the protected class.

Within this context, the recency and job-relatedness of any conviction must be considered by the employer before making an adverse hiring decision relating to criminal record. It is generally advisable that employers inform job applicants, at the time of application, that these mitigating factors will be considered; an employer’s failure to do so may have a chilling effect on job applicants pursuing a job with that employer, which may prove to be discriminatory.

http://www.humanrights.state.mn.us/employers/hiring.html 

Another Minnesota rules deals with minor offense for which jail time cannot be imposed, or instances where an arrest did not result in a conviction,  According to Minnesota law: 

The following criminal records shall not be used, distributed, or disseminated by the state of Minnesota, its agents or political subdivisions in connection with any application for public employment nor in connection with an application for a license:

(1) Records of arrest not followed by a valid conviction.

(2) Convictions which have been, pursuant to law, annulled or expunged.

(3) Misdemeanor convictions for which no jail sentence can be imposed.

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=364.04

Nothing in this blog is intended as legal advice and is not intended be a complete discussion of all laws that may apply.  Employers should contact thier attorney for specific advice on these laws may apply to them.   However, it does underscore once again that background screening and hiring is a highly regulated area that requires the assistance of professionals, and not merely data vending companies.  Becasue ESR receives so many questions about state laws, hiring  and background checks, ESR will blogging on certain aspects of all 50 states during the rest of 2010.

By Jared Callahan, Employment Screening Resources

An article in MSNBC examining the use of credit reports and employment quoted Employment Screening Resources President Lester Rosen on how credit reports are used in screening.  

The article concerned the current controversy over the use of credit reports and the suggestion that in a recession, that credit reports can harm job applicants.  See:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35512038/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/ 

ESR was quoted in two areas: 

And if a new worker is to have access to large amounts of company cash or financial systems, it’s only prudent for a hiring manager to find out if the applicant has a pile of unpaid debts, said Lester S. Rosen, CEO of ESRcheck, which screens job candidates for companies.

“If an employer hires an embezzler and did not do a credit report in a sensitive position and the employer was then sued for negligent hiring, the argument would then be: ‘How stupid were you for not to running a credit report?’” he said.

The article also indicated that: 

Though many employers run credit checks on some applicants, relatively few are turned down for a job because of bad credit, according to Rosen of ESRcheck.
“It’s only when they’re down to a finalist or one or two finalists that they’ll run a background check,” he said. “And in the real world, what we see is that it really takes something pretty horrendous in the credit report to reverse a decision that they’re vested in.”

However, the article also clarified that “credit scores” are NOT used for employment decisions, which is common myth.   Unfortunately, many critics of the use of employment credit reports cannot seem to comprehend that credit scores are NOT used for employment.  Although there can be many opinions, it is more helpful if the discussion is based upon facts, as opposed to assumptions, or miss-information.  

ESR has consistently recommend that credit reports be reserved for positions where there is  a clear business justification, and to keep in mind that credit reports can contain information that is old, incorrect, or not relevant to the job.  

For more information on credit reports and employment, view a White Paper prepared jointly by LexisNexis and Employment Screening Resources called:  The Use of Credit Reports in Employment Background Screening –an Overview for Job Applicants http://www.esrcheck.com/docs/credit_report_whitepaper.pdf

(Coming shortly:  article on proposed restrictions in the state of Oregon on credit reports)

In a recent state court case that concerned a fact pattern familiar to background screening specialist, a local office of a national staffing firm supplied an employer with a bookkeeper that turned out to have criminal record for felony fraud and who misrepresented her educational background.  The worker embezzled $138,350.  However, since the employer did not specify that the staffing firm should do a background check, and the staffing firm never claimed that they would do one, the employer’s claims were dismissed.  (more…)

By Les Rosen, Employment Screening Resources

In a previous blog, Employment Screening Resources recounted how its president’s own dog, a Border Collie named Gypsy Rose, received a college degree complete with very genuine looking transcripts in 2005  (http://www.esrcheck.com/wordpress/1282/genuine-fake-diplomas-on-the-rise) 

As noted in the blog, “the author’s dog received a very genuine-looking diploma in business administration in 2005 purportedly issued by the University of Arizona through an online diploma-selling service.  (The author picked on the University of Arizona only because a family member was attending Arizona State.  Since the author is a UCLA alumni, the author considered getting his dog a diploma from USC as well, which was also an option.)” 

There have been a number of request to actually view the fake documents.  Keep in mind that the actual diploma is on parchment and the transcripts are on special paper as well. 

Here is the diploma issued, to Gypsy Rose Lee, a Border Collie, in 2005.     http://www.esrcheck.com/docs/fake-diploma.pdf

The accomplishment is all the more impressive since Gypsy Rose had passed away long before she supposed attended college.  Although Border Collies are among the smartest breeds, it is doubtful that she could in fact have received a college degree.  

Here are the fake transcripts.  http://www.esrcheck.com/docs/fake-transcripts.pdf 

She only received a B in US History to 1877, which is disappointing considering how smart Border Collies are. 

For the full story, see:  http://www.esrcheck.com//Fake_Diploma.php