Lies on job applications are no surprise

The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, CA), April 17, 2006
By Denise Goolsby

Report finds many inaccuracies come from white-collar workers

The fact that people lie on job applications should come as no surprise to anyone. The stunner is that fudging credentials on the application is on the rise, a California screening service has said.

"They've been creeping up every year," said Barry Nadell, president of InfoLink Screening Services Inc. of Chatsworth. And the people doing a lot of the lying - about credit history, education and past employment - come from traditionally white collar fields, including those seeking employment in the health-care, real estate and nonprofit sectors, a recent InfoLink report said.

The company performs employment background checks for more than 4,000 businesses and corporations nationwide, Nadell said. InfoLink's 2005 Report of Employee Background Screening by Industry includes information from about 200,000 applicants. It breaks down results from those queries into numbers for 14 industries that include business services, construction, education, health-care, hospitality and real estate.

Of the applications screened by InfoLink last year, from low-wage employees to high-level managers, nearly half of those lied about their credit history or their DMV information, which includes withholding information about suspended licenses, failures to appear in court and arrest warrants as well as drug and alcohol related driving offenses. Along with crimes and misdemeanors, job candidates also shaded information about Social Security numbers, past employment, academic achievement, workers' compensation history and more.

Sept. 11 and ID theft

Tracy Seabrook, executive director of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners in Durham, N.C., said modern times have made background screening a growing practice.

The association counts 353 professional background screening agencies among its members.

"After 9/11 and with the huge onslaught of ID theft, it's caught the attention of the media," Seabrook said. "It's definitely a growing industry since 2000, 2001," she said.

Still, Nadell said the increase in the number of deliberate inaccuracies on applications is not due to the increase in the number of applications being screened. More candidates are fudging their credentials, he insists. "I would have expected our hit ratio to go down," Nadell said. "But that's not the case. It's a surprising fact. When you have a larger sample generally those numbers drop."

In 2004, the criminal records check across all industries turned up hits in 8.3 percent of all applications checked. The following year, that number rose to 8.5 percent. Instead of 83 hits for every thousand applications, there's 85, Nadell said.

Yes, nonprofits check

Employers are wising-up to the charade and are increasingly requesting employee background checks on their employees, said Nadell. They also are using the service to check on the citizenship status of its employees. Employers are not running around illegally snooping on employees. Background screens can only be performed with the written consent of the employee, said Nadell.

According to InfoLink's report, those pursuing work in the hospitality industry lied about their DMV records 41.2 percent of the time and their credit histories 49.4 percent of the time. "I guess it surprises me," said Michael Green, president of the Palm Springs Hospitality Association, when told of the numbers.

"I would have to look at it relative to the demographics of the people they sampled." Green, who also co-owns Triangle Inn, a small Palm Springs hotel, said the number of job functions within the hospitality industry attracts a wide range of people. It may be part of the way to explain the high numbers, he said. Front desk workers, waiters, bartenders, laundry people and house cleaners are "very traditional job types" and these workers come from different backgrounds. "You can almost job class it," he said.

Those applying for jobs in the nonprofit arena listed incorrect information about their education 21.7 percent of the time, the highest of all industries. These applicants weren't forthcoming about their past employment histories either, fibbing 46.2 percent of the time. "I think people think nonprofits are naive," said Renatta J. Rafferty. Rafferty is a 20-year veteran adviser in the field of philanthropy. The Indian Wells resident authored the book, "Don't Just Give it Away: How to Make the Most of Your Charitable Giving."

Rafferty said applicants may think a nonprofit is not in a position to pay or a background check. "The sense of `They'll never spend the money to do it,' " rules, she said. Or they may think the hiring standards are lower for nonprofits, she surmised.

New areas of concern

Nadell said workers' compensation, citizenship and the validity of Social Security numbers are becoming a growing concern for employers. "We're doing more workers' comp searches than ever before," said Nadell.

Increasingly, said Nadell, "People conveniently forget to list former employers where they've filed a workers' comp claim." Additionally, nearly 5 percent of InfoLink background checks revealed false or unverifiable Social Security numbers.

Since employers who knowingly or unwittingly hire undocumented immigrants can be levied huge fines, it is incumbent on employers to be able to verify the true identity of a worker, he said. InfoLink is set to launch a service that, "With the push of a button, we can verify the employee's right to work" in this country, said Nadell.

Glances: Do you need employee screening?

There's no hard and fast rule about how big your business should be to consider using an employee background screening service, said Steve Rich, Chairman of the Coachella Valley Service Core of Retired Executives. "It depends on the nature of the business," Rich said. "Anyone handling cash, having access to inventory or personal information," should be screened, said Rich. If a company can afford it, they should do it, he said. "The more people you screen, the better off you are," said Rich.

The cost?

An individual search can run from under $20 to $100, "depending on the extent of research and services requested," said Barry Nadell, president InfoLink Screening Services Inc. of Chatsworth.

Undocumented workers

The citizenship status of workers is of primary concern today because of the influx of Mexican workers and the current debate on Capitol Hill about their fate. There are about 233,000 undocumented workers in Riverside County. It is unknown how many there are in the Coachella Valley. Popular wisdom says they are prevalent in the valley's key industries of agriculture, hospitality, construction and retail. The penalties for knowingly hiring the undocumented: $250 to $2,000 per undocumented worker on first offense that occurred before Sept. 29, 1999, and between $275 and $2,200, for each offense that occurred on or after Sept. 29, 1999 $2,000 to $5,000 per worker for a second offense that occurred before Sept. 29,1999, and $2,200 to $5,500 if it occurred on or after Sept. 29, 1999 $3,000 to $10,000 per worker for each third and subsequent offense that occurred before Sept. 29, 1999, and $3,300 to $11,000 if it occurred on or after Sept. 29, 1999.

Copyright (c) The Desert Sun. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Gannett Co., Inc. by NewsBank, inc.
Record Number: plm2006041815350608