Feature

Making employee screening more effective

Besides direct reference checks, the emergence of professional networking sites and specialized agencies has given a new direction to background screening, writes Nivedan Prakash

Background screening of candidates has become a must for all organizations today. It is a known fact that a large percentage of CVs are either fake or misrepresent facts. The false information ranges from experience, education and aptitude to performance of vital job responsibilities. Many candidates also proudly show fake experience documents.

Here comes the role of background screening that helps companies in reducing costs incurred due to a wrong hiring; reduces reputational, financial and legal risks, and complexities; ensures genuinely qualified and competent employees are hired; and alerts the company from hiring candidates with fraudulent and unethical motives.

Today organizations use different means to do the background screening of new employees. This involves reference information sought from existing employees, professional networking websites, professional background screening companies, National Skills Registry, generating information from HR department of previous employers, and check with the references provided by the prospective candidate, amongst others.

Ashish Dehade, MD–West Asia, First Advantage commented, “The background screening process involves carrying out different kinds of checks on potential/existing employees. The number and scope of checks vary by role, career levels or number of years of experience. Services requested often are education verification, employment verification, criminal record check, address verification, reference check, check against global regulatory and compliance databases, identity check, drug testing, etc. Any misrepresentation or information mismatch in the above checks is reported as a discrepancy.”

“Background screening is the systematic process of verifying the credentials of the candidate mentioned in his CV. This involves professional and personal reference checks, previous employment verification, education certificate verification, criminal database check ( national as well as domestic), court records verification, financial liability verification (e.g. loan default list), drug test, address verification etc., from reliable and authentic sources,” added Rajaram Agrawal, MD, Talent Ahead.

Emergence of professional networking sites

The professional networking sites are a useful starting point to conduct background verification about prospective employees, provided the employee is registered with these websites. It gives an overall picture of the candidates with their links and other associations. However, it may not give details about their medical records, criminal records, legal bindings or any other statutory commitments.

Professional networking sites do provide a different perspective of the candidate and can be a part of the evaluation process, but one cannot solely depend upon the same. These sites give an easy access to connect with a prospective candidate’s colleagues and ex-colleagues, which in turn helps to identify the candidate’s performance, professional behavior and ethics.

Vani Sathvik, VP-HR and Administration, Eka Software Solutions, said, “A few websites allow their ex-colleagues or friends to write recommendations, but this information is subjective and can also be biased.  Sometimes, it becomes a forced obligation to write a positive recommendation which may tend to be polarized.  There-fore, findings from these sites should be used to complement information received from various sources, but not in isolation.”

“Professional and social networking sites serve as a quick and effective platform for the HR to gain a valuable insight about the candidate. Moreover, there is a high possibility of discovering someone in the network of the candidate who is a common link and can provide you with first hand information. But in absence of the proper legal framework, it is always advisable that the candidate should be taken in consent before making any formal use of any such information,” asserted Surinder Bhagat, Country Manager–HR, Freescale Semiconductor India.

Sites like LinkedIn help professionals share their resumes, network with employers and vice versa, use links to job postings, etc. They also provide an array of opportunity to know the candidate well enough through their profiles, resumes, interests, blogs, websites of candidates and social contacts.

Samir Kaber, MD, Theron International is, however, of the view that through the employee’s online presence the company can get a deeper perspective on the potential employees persona, peer group, friends, interests, and finally family—all which impact his/her life and performance. These additional inputs will help a company get a holistic view of a person.

Seconding Kaber, Rajkumar D, Head–HR (RIMS), Microland, stated that these sites, to some extent, provide a common view of the candidates. The information is public and is visible to everyone, including current employer and peer employees. This, in a way controls the individual not to hype beyond a certain level compared to a resume which is private and shared only with very limited people and can have information, especially on achievements, which may not be verifiable.

Assessment through direct reference checks

Normally, HR does the background screening through the direct reference check provided by the candidates. But one question that arises here is whether this is the correct way of assessment. As references are provided by the candidate, it is very likely that it will be only positive and might not give a full perspective on the candidate—especially his/her weaknesses.

Direct reference check by the names provided by the candidate cannot be considered a foolproof method, as most of time the candidate takes the referee into confidence, before providing his/her contact details to the HR. So the possibility of pro candidate information coming in cannot be ruled out.

Ashok Srinivasan, Vice President–Operations Support at Expertus, opined that to a certain extent the reference provided by the candidates will hold good. Bias may be involved since the candidate might be giving his own friend or colleagues contacts as reference. All the details provided in the assessment may or may not be true. Hence, we cannot take this as the final assessment.

Sunil Goel, Professional Leader, GlobalHunt India is also of the view that references provided by candidates do not give a clear picture as most of the references are of those people who either share good equation or who will speak well about the candidate. HR professionals must go ahead and check with the prospective candidate’s previous companies.

Shivani Bose, HR–Manager, Nestor Pharmaceuticals, commented that solely relying on the contact numbers provided by the candidate may lead to biased results as employees often tend to give contact numbers of people who would give a positive feedback for them. HR must ensure accurate and comprehensive reference checks. At Nestor Pharmaceuticals, we use a comprehensive employee reference check form.

Meanwhile, at times, it is it is not even clear that the given contact is actually working in the company or is it a fake contact. It would not be right for any organization to depend only on direct reference checks when there are various investigative processes like professional agencies, networking with other companies and social networking websites.

“A direct reference check conducted by the HR might not be the most effective way of validation as the referrals could have been impressed by candidate to specify on the points that have already been presented by the candidate,” said N V Rajan, Senior VP–HR, Infinite Computer Solutions.

Echoing his views on the same, Shantanu Banerjee, Director–HR, Steria India, pointed out that pre-employment reference check is one of the tools for organizations to counter the threat of hiring risk. However, direct reference checks alone may not be a sufficient measure. The referral may end providing biased and not altogether correct information.

Engaging professional agencies

Organizations these days also employ professional agencies for background screening, and to a large extent, they prove effective as well. It is because there are professional and dedicated agencies that are not influenced by any external factors. The agencies like First Advantage have evolved processes and databases that have been created through years of existence.

Sanjay Shetty, Director– Operations, EmmayHR, opined that engaging professional agencies is becoming a normal phenomenon nowadays. They are proving to be quite effective as these reference checking companies are only focused on this job and have affiliations with educational, professional and police authorities.

With the professional agencies, companies can expect independent data that can serve as high value supplemental information for recruitment decision-making. Professional agencies give choices of checks that companies can choose as per their organizational need. For example, a company in financial sector may like to do a financial/fraud related check whereas a company into high level of R&D may like to do a thorough check of all the degrees that the candidate possesses.

“Relying on professional agencies is an essential aspect for all organizations. Using services from seasoned individuals working in these agencies help in taking a good decision about the candidate. These investigations are definitely very effective since they throw a lot of data after in-depth investigation into a person or company’s records. This may also disclose information the subject would like to keep private,” added Iti Kumar, VP–People Development, GlobalLogic.

Punkaj Shankar, Global Head–HR and RMG, Infogain, is also of the opinion that now-a-days there are hundreds of background screening agencies in India, ranging from professional companies like KPMG to many small detective agencies. Some of them are good and professional in their approach. So the effectiveness also varies from agency to agency. If care has been taken in choosing the right kind of agency, then it can prove to be very effective in providing complete verification of employment history, criminal history, and even social position of the candidate.

Moreover, there are professional agencies that have have tie-ups with major universities worldwide which facilitates checking on education details. Since many organizations use these agencies, organizations are honest in sharing feedback with them as it is mutually beneficial. These agencies also have an arrangement with the police department where for a fee they are able to ascertain as to whether a person has any criminal cases pending against him. The agencies are therefore in a position to provide a reasonably accurate report on the prospective employee.

“There is certainly merit in having professional agencies do background screenings and their contribution in this has indeed been important for the industry. Having said that, their level of effectiveness also has significant dependency on the speed and accuracy of information provided by the industry associates, especially the HR fraternity, as well as availability of data and the ease of retrieval from regulatory and other government organizations,” asserted Sujata Mukhopadhyay, Head-Talent Acquisition, Logica.

Role of HR

Here, HR can make their own reference contact list through varied sources for correct candidate assessment.

Chidanandan Naik, HR Manager, Nivio, said that as an HR manager, he felt that the HR department needs to call all the previous organizations, make an assessment through the networking sites, do the police verification of the candidate, get in touch with the clubs and social bodies they are associated with, and make reference check through their educational institutions.

“Over time, the HR department can build a database of employers along with contact details of key persons and the HR departments of those employers. This can be used later for future candidate assessments. It is, however, a time-taking process and considerable effort is required to reduce the reliance on the direct references provided by the candidate,” added Shruti Tandon, Senior Executive–HR, Nagarro Software.

Abhay Aaggarwal, CEO of Integrity Verification Services, is quick here to point out that not only the time and effort, HR in companies do not have the expertise or critical data which is collated from other clients by background screening companies. They do not even know what the pitfalls to look out for are. For example, we screen websites to assess the language used, to match the company logo with that on the letterhead of the relieving letter, etc. This also helps us make out a fake company issuing bogus experience certificates to qualify otherwise non-qualified candidates for a particular job. The above is just one example of the level of checks we perform while conducting a background check.

Meanwhile, HR can make their contact list by interacting with employees of different companies through social networking sites, telephonic discussions, sending emails and other professional associations. Present employees who have worked with different companies can also help in forming the database.

HR can also get references through their own contacts, through their friends/colleague/groups and candidates can be assessed. This database can help in getting quick reference check which otherwise takes a long time when it goes through background verifying agents.

nivedan.prakash@expressindia.com