Hire Abilities

A recent local newspaper headline read: "Lack of background checks allowed felon to serve as Wiki-media executive officer."

It seems that Wikipedia, the company’s online encyclopedia division, had a new chief operating officer with a record of theft, drunken driving and fleeing the scene of a car crash. Such information would have turned up in a background check, something the Wikimedia folks evidently failed to get, but something local business managers are increasingly turning to as the pool of job applicants continues to swell.

Ask Brandon Phillips, CEO of Global HR Research, a Bonita Springs-based firm that conducts background checks for businesses. His local and national client base, including small businesses and companies with hundreds of employees, has steadily expanded in the company’s two years of operation.

"Bigger firms might have our personnel check courthouse records and interview former employers. They may want character evaluations, which we provide through a partnership," Phillips says. "Smaller companies can get reports with more limited online information from high-quality, international databases."

Before hiring anyone, the least an employer should do is check on the validity of the candidate’s Social Security number and address history, he advises. Criminal record, sex-offender status and credit status are also important.

"A person with a history of money problems is more likely to cause a company trouble than an applicant with a good record," he says.

Another thing to watch out for, he says, are job applicants who create fraudulent résumés by claiming education they don’t have and by stating they worked longer at jobs than they did.

Phillips cites a case about a chief financial officer who had already been hired. "The company came to us, and we discovered his entire résumé was fraudulent. The person didn’t even have a CPA license."