Increased need for employer due diligence

By Les Rosen, Employment Screening Resources

2010 Trends in Screening Trend Nine: Increased need for employer due diligence

Another impact of the recession is the likelihood of applicant fraud.  Fraudulent educational claims, or worthless diplomas from degree mills, are already familiar problem for employers, recruiters and HR professionals.  However, resume fraud took on an added urgency in 2009 with the advent of services that would actually create fake employment references from fake companies.  The service apparently even included a phone number that an employer could call in order to reach a service that in fact would verify the fake employment.  Although statistic are not yet available, anecdotally it appears that some job applicants have been willing to resort to these extreme and dishonest measures to gain an advantage in the job market. 

In the long run, worthless diplomas bought over the internet or scams to create manufactured past employment will probably be unsuccessful for the most part, provided that employers exercise some due diligence.  For fake education, a competent background firm will typically verify first if a school is legitimate.  If the school does not appear on accepted lists of accredited institution, then a screening firm can review lists of known diploma mills and scams.  Screening firms will also verify if the accreditation agency is for real, since fake schools have resorted to creating fake accreditation agencies.

In addition, pulling of a fake job reference is getting much more difficult.  A good background firm will not simply call the name and number provided by the applicant.  Professional screeners will typically independently establish if the past employer even existed, and locate a phone number independently of whatever number an applicant puts on their resume.  Employment Screening Resources, for example, goes through an extensive procedure to verify that each past employer is legitimate and does not accept the applicant provided phone number.

The bottom-line for employers in 2010 is taking extra caution to ensure you are hiring bona fide employees.

(Employment Screening Resources (ESR), a leading national online employment screening background firm, is releasing the ESR Third Annual Top Ten Trends in the Pre-Employment Background Screening Industry  for 2010. This is the Ninth of the ten trends ESR will be tracking in 2010.)