Employee Verification and Social Media – An HR Manager’s Dilemma

Technology has affected all aspects of our life and has provided us with new channels for expressing ourselves. All of us today have the ability to stay connected with our friends 24/7, voice our unrestrained opinion via blogs, forums, and promote ourselves via personalized websites. This influx of technology has also resulted in an abundance of jobs in the software industry such as software code writer, Internet marketing manager, among others. As the job opportunities grow in this market so does the need for talent.

This in-depth integration of social media in our daily lives has presented HR managers with unique opportunities and challenges, for screening new talent. Before we proceed and discuss the complications and the judgment call an HR manager needs to make let’s check out a few tools that can be part of an HR manager’s employee background verification arsenal.

1. Employee Verification via Google Search:

The following Google commands can help an HR manager get the ball rolling for a basic online employee background check.

• Enter the name of the person applying for the job in quotes (“ ”) and Google should be able to pull up internet footprint’s for the candidate in question.

Example: If the candidates name is Hari Sadu then type “Hari Sadu” in the Google search bar. I suggest being a little more detailed and including the person’s location of residence or last job within the quotes i.e. “Hari Sadu Hyderabad.”

• If the candidate you are hiring is still working in a company, then you could enter:

Site: candidate’s company name “Candidates Name.” Example Site:Microsoft.com “Hari Sadu Hyderabad”

• You can also head over to the People Search section on the Jantakhoj website to find details about the candidate you are hiring.
• Yet another option is the bphonebook syntax: the bphonebook command in the Google search bar will help you search business phone numbers. It is especially helpful when the HR manager wants to reach someone in the candidate’s place of employment.

Example: bphonebook:Intel will pull up information to get in touch with Intel

2. Employee Verification via username:

Sometimes people that are professionally related to the Internet marketing field provide their online username in their resume, the username is used to showcase the work they might have done online. An example would be a Social Media expert showcasing the tweaks he has made to his Facebook page, or a person showcasing the quality and/or number of his Twitter followers.

A HR manager can use Pipl or PeekYou to search for a candidate via his/her online username. The query returns the candidates online accounts created with the searched username – consistence in the candidates profile and expertise mentioned, across all the web 2.0 platforms can provide a level of confidence in the candidate’s background.

3. Employee Verification via Who.is:

Usually software programmers refer to a website to showcase their area of expertise. HR can use the Who.Is to check whether the mentioned website belongs to the candidate or not.

Based on the tools mentioned above an HR manager can gather sufficient information about a candidate’s online persona  and its consistency with the information provided during the pre-employment process. Having access to the above information does not necessarily make the decision making process easier.

Participation in blogs and forums kept aside, most of us use Internet as an extension of our personal life and we really don’t have any control over what others post or say about us online. For instance, consider a case wherein an HR manager has two equally qualified candidates that he thinks will make a good fit in the organization. Doing a Google search for the first candidate returns his/her Facebook page. Browsing through the candidate’s page reveals that he has set the necessary privacy filters. However, the HR manager finds pictures of the first candidate on his friends Facebook page that show him smoking and drinking.

On doing a similar check on the second candidate, Google returns  pages that reflects only his/her educational and professional accomplishments. The question that arises for consideration is to what extent an HR manager should take into account information extracted from social media sites.

Most of us live two different lives. On one hand, we maintain a very professional demeanor in the work place and on the other we tend to be entirely different at home. Adding this additional information that is gleaned from social media sites to the mix makes the decision making process taxing.

The rate at which technology is evolving and the impact it has on our professional and personal life cannot be ignored. Online sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. can provide invaluable information about a candidate during the pre and post-employment cycle. The missing piece of information that can help HR managers build  an unbiased decision is to have an in-depth employer, educational, address and criminal check done for the candidate under scrutiny. The cumulative offline and online information collected about the candidate can help eliminate any confusion resulting from a partial view of the employee’s background.

We at JantaKhoj can help you make a concrete decision about the candidate you might hire.  Reach us on 040 42007092 or sales@jantakhoj.com to get a free sample of the employee background verification services we provide.

Employee Background Check & Employee Infidelity

The news of employee infidelity such as the one involving Citibank’s wealth manager or of the senior candidate who was hired as a practice head and was found to have furnished fake IIT and IIM certificate’s forced me think whether adherence to a strict and thorough employee background check policy across all companies would have averted these incidents and could have provided better opportunities for more deserving candidate’s. The second train of thought was if these people had managed to survive so long with forged credentials then they would have done a terrific job in covering their tracks and in making people believe in their educational and professional qualifications. Would employee background checks really help and if yes, how?

Before diving into the intricacies of an employee background check I think it is important to have a little understanding of human psychology. As human’s, most of us have a tendency to exaggerate our accomplishments. For some of us, it becomes a source of false but nevertheless, much needed confidence but for some it becomes a tool of trickery. Again most of us are afraid to lie from the fear of getting caught and from the rebuke that might follow, whereas for others lies become a source of false bravado and lulls them into thinking that they can trick anybody. However, there’s only one constant that remains unchanged for all of us, our past track record, which is open to scrutiny through an employee background check in a job applicant scenario.

A person trying to hide his past is akin to building a house from a pack of cards, all it needs is just one card to be displaced for the entire house to come crashing down. A thorough employee background check can help find discrepancies in the persons past that could lead to a better understanding of the candidate’s profile. I would not say that an employee background check is the be all and end all of hiring and retaining an employee – a lot also depends on the HR manager’s judgment and expertise. Employee background check, however, does provide a solid foundation for superior decision making.

We at JantaKhoj understand the need for gathering and providing companies with thorough employee background checks to allow them to make transparent, unbiased and uninfluenced decisions in their endeavor to hire and retain new talent.

Give us a call on 040 42007092 or reach us at sales@jantakhoj.com for a free demo of the services we offer.

The Employee that Lasted….

India is Rising and so are the job opportunities. This positive growth has created a unique challenge for all companies and specifically for HR departments in their effort to hire and maintain talent. The challenges are two fold, the first task in hiring a new candidate is an employee background check be it address, education qualifications, previous employment and/or CTC verification. At this point the HR department usually reaches out to an external agency that specializes in background checks and helps validate the credentials as provided by the candidate. This process though helpful has its limitations as this validation is partially guided by the candidate. In almost all cases the HR department and in turn the background verification  agencies only reach out to the references provided by the candidate, thus providing the candidate with the freedom to furnish references that are likely to provide a feedback that is to his/her advantage.

The second task, beyond the preliminary background checks is to ensure that the candidate in question is going to be a long term player. The HR department tries to get an idea of the candidate’s long term aspirations by looking at the employee background check feedback and by posing questions that may provide insight about the candidate’s stability and long term goals. Then again this rudimentary process is mostly guided by the candidate through canned answers for the posed questions. If background verification is a critical part of employee hire and retention process, then the question arises on the most optimal and efficient path to follow for employee background checks.

Let’s take a look at an alternate background verification method that not only steers away from the conventional but also takes away the candidate’s freedom to influence  background checks. The first thought is to hold the employee background check agency  accountable for the feedback provided by requesting documentation for all the background checks that are conducted. Secondly the process of contacting the candidates references needs to be expanded to include the candidate’s other colleague’s, that are not part of the references provided.

The background verification company that is hired should verify the candidate’s house address by visiting the address provided and should confirm the candidate’s residency by talking to the person available. To have a detailed employee background check the relationship of the available person with the candidate can also be documented. Background checks should also include a visit to the candidate’s educational institutes/universities to validate his/her educational qualifications. Any discrepancies in the candidates educational qualifications need to be reported by the background verification company along with  stamped documents from the university.

The other important aspect of reference verification has conventionally been handled by a company’s internal HR department. This process also needs to be outsourced to an employee background check agency. The agency can start by calling the references provided by the candidate and then needs to expand on the background check by including calls to other employees of the company that worked with the candidate. The background verification company can obtain information about the candidate’s other colleagues via LinkedIn or by calling up the company and asking for people in the candidate’s department. This is a very critical process and can provide completely new insights into the candidate’s professionalism and work ethics.

By having access to this plethora of information, an HR manager can make a better and more well informed decision about the candidate’s fit in the organization.

We at JantaKhoj endeavor to make the background verification  process a breeze. To get a free demo of the employee background verification services we provide, reach us on 040 42007092 or sales@jantakhoj.com