ChoicePoint is the company named by the Piper Jaffray survey respondents as the most recognized and used vendor in this fragmented niche (it does about 8 million background checks a year and its computers hold 19 billion public records). Chuck Jones, a spokesman for ChoicePoint, says, �A significant number of Fortune 500 companies request background screenings every year. It gives them a sense of security that the people they hire do not pose a risk to themselves or their business.�

Jones says that, since 9/11, background checks have become �pretty standard at all full-time levels.� He says companies that previously performed minimum-level screenings now conduct more in-depth screenings.

Still, says Neil Livingstone, CEO of GlobalOptions, an international risk management company, �Resume fraud and embellishment are almost a national epidemic,� and background checks are not as prevalent as they should be. Livingstone says about 50% of companies do �checks of some sort,� but only 10% do them adequately. Some companies, he says, research the pasts of low-level employees and high-level employees but not the people in the middle. Others, he said, don�t even check high-level staffers under a tacit old-school agreement: �Gentlemen don�t read other gentlemen�s mail.�

The chances of a resume being wrong, however, increase in direct proportion to the level of the rungs on the corporate ladder according to Livingstone. A CEO candidate, he says, is more likely to embroider, varnish or exaggerate the positives � or to omit the negatives � than is an employee on a production line. �The best companies background everyone,� he says.

Livingstone says some headhunters occasionally do checks on job applicants, verifying the data on their resumes, while others accept at face value the information a candidate provides, noting that it�s the hiring company�s responsibility to do an in-depth check. But, he says, �38% of all resumes contain some sort of error or misstatement. We�ve knocked 6 CEO candidates out of contention in the last 2 years [for that reason].�

He notes that at financial institutions and at the senior level at corporations, �Everyone ought to be checked.� That means looking for potential criminal records, outstanding debts and tax liens and verifying that �they are who they say they are.�

Jones says that, particularly at financial institutions, personal credit history is critical. There�s a perception, he says, that �if you can�t handle your own finances, you wouldn�t make a good employee for a financial company.�

Other aspects of a thorough background check, both experts say, include education verification (did you really graduate from Harvard Business School?); verification of previous employment (are you truly a turnaround expert?); and credential verification (is your CPA status valid, for example?). �Some employers ask for research into state sex offender lists; some ask for county courthouse and state criminal records,� Jones says. �Most are done at the depth requested by the client.�

�I cannot tell a lie�

�Any company can fire you if you have a misstatement in your resume,� Livingstone says. Therefore, �Make sure you didn�t misstate things, especially your education.� Most applicants who embellish, he says, do so with their intellectual credentials, going as far as inventing bogus universities or mentioning spurious induction into Phi Beta Kappa. One candidate said he went to Stamford University, when he meant Stanford. Others aggrandize their military service records.

Some candidates, he says, especially women at mid-level or lower mid-level positions, misstate their marital status. He says they think being married with children would make them appear to be less-than-reliable employees. Others fudge their age or say they belong to socially prestigious clubs. �My rule of thumb,� Livingstone says, �is that anyone who materially alters their resume cannot be trusted as a candidate.�

�Prospective employees need to provide honest, accurate information because the predominance of adverse decisions in the hiring process is the result of background checks,� Jones says. If there�s anything questionable in your history, he adds, �Be honest and upfront so you can explain the situation.�

An undisclosed criminal past usually is the biggest deal-breaker, he says. �In your youth, you might have committed a crime. Twenty years later that probably should not be held against you.�

ChoicePoint sells a $24.95 do-it-yourself background-check kit that, the company�s website says, �allows you to differentiate yourself from other job seekers by giving employers confidence in the accuracy of your background information.� Jones says, �A pre-emptive self-check is a good tool to both learn what a prospective employer is going to find and make corrections if there is an error in your record.�

As Mark Twain said, �One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.� If you�re honest, a lie can�t come back to scratch you.

Reader comment:

Hello. Yes, this has been a very big concern of mine. In the last few years my credit has gone bad, therefore, it has prevented me from ever getting a job again. I've worked in the banking institutions for the last 23 years and never had a problem with anything. If employers were to check the previous banking institutions I've worked for they would tell them that they never had a problem with me. If anything, I manage their money better than I manage my own. Over 60% of people today have bad credit due to many things especially the economy. What will these 60% do? How will they survive? I've found a few things on my credit report that aren't even mine. With a name as common as mine. That could happen, I've already been denied a position because of someone with the same name and same birth date just a year different And different race. I had to fight like heck to get it wiped off of my name. What's going happen from here on?

C.W.

04 May 2005