Once upon a time a security officer left one security company and went to another. He didn't list his previous employment on his application, so company B had no way to know he worked at company A, or that he'd been fired. He was hired pending a background investigation, but in the meantime, the security officer set fire to a movie studio he was assigned to protect. The only difference between this scenario and many others like it is that this one made headlines across the country. It also brought attention to the major problem employers all over have - how can you find out when someone is leaving a prior employment off his application and how can you protect yourself from this kind of situation?

The need for thorough pre-employment screening is receiving more attention now that the courts have started to hold companies liable for negligent hiring procedures. Employers can no longer rely on traditional screening methods to distinguish the qualified from the unqualified, much less as protection against negligent hiring lawsuits. Resumes, applications, and interviews are unreliable tools for weeding out persons who cover up shortcomings with lies, omissions, or exaggerations.

It is at this initial application stage that vital information which is critical to your hiring decision is most needed. If your applicants are leaving previous security employments off their applications in order to cover problems or terminations, you have no way to know about it. Mark Rosen, an attorney in employment related security and investigative matters in New York City, states, "Because of the increase of workplace violence, sexual harassment and non-credentialed employee litigation, the need to conduct comprehensive and accurate background screening is more paramount than it has ever been in the past."

There are many ways that employers can check on applicants: credit histories; driver's license information; criminal conviction record; and tests: psychological, honesty, drug, etc.; and industry specific databases- and each of these is very important in its' own way. However, each of these components is only a piece to the puzzle, each piece telling only a little bit of an important story.

Credit. If the applicant has established credit, this can tell you whether there are any public records concerning this individual - suits, liens, judgments, etc. Are these any indication of how good an employee will be? Probably not. That depends on what you're looking for. You may also find a previous employment or two listed, but remember, not everyone applies for credit every time he changes jobs. The three biggest credit bureaus are TRW, CBI, and Equifax; however, none of these three will open an account for private investigators.

Driver's license information. Some people think that this may be a better indication of your applicant's character than a credit report. If your applicant is going to be working in a facility where he will never have access to a company vehicle, you may think some of these items may not matter. Think again. Are there any police reported accidents? Are there any violations on his license? If so, for what? Speeding? Going through a red light or stop sign? Driving under the influence? While speeding might be excused, driving under the influence should be a red flag. If he drives under the influence, will he work that way as well? What about ignoring traffic signals? Will company rules and policies be ignored as well? Are these any indications to how conscientious a worker this security officer may be?

Criminal Conviction Record. This is great, but (1) only if your applicant has been convicted of a crime, and a felony at that, and (2) if you find out about it before you hire him.

How long does it take to get conviction records back from the state police? In New Jersey, anywhere from 4 to 6 months. In New York City, from the Office Of Court Administration, usually 24 hours - if the clerk doesn't make a mistake in the card file (it has been known to happen). Some states don't provide this information at all. If your applicant has been arrested and has not yet come up for trial, you may not know about it.

Conversely, and just as important, how many times have you wanted to have an employee arrested but could not, because your client would not press charges? All you could do was fire the employee and hope his next employer would contact you so that you could tell the company what problems this employee presented. (And we know the chances of that happening.)

State Registries - While some states, such as New Jersey, require only that employers register new employees with the State Police and run an FBI and statewide criminal check via fingerprint cards, other states, such as New York and Maryland issue Registration (NY) or Clearance (MD) cards to people who have have no criminal felony conviction records (Maryland) or who have no criminal felony conviction record and have taken a minimum number of hours of training and have passed the minimum training requirements (NYS). However, someone who has been convicted of a misdemeanor can still receive a clearance card in some states. Furthermore, none of these states will provide employment histories to prospective employers (most states don't), and termination for cause is not sufficient to revoke a registration or clearance card. Also, if a registration or clearance has been revoked, one must call the issuing department (Licensing Services in NYS Department of State or Licensing Services for the Maryland State Police) in order to find this out, as someone who's has his clearance revoked will most likely not send his card back to the issuing authority. In addition, while some states' clearance or registration cards have to be renewed periodically, other states issue lifetime cards. If someone is convicted of a crime after he or she has received a clearance card and the issuing authority is not notified so that the card can be revoked, you could be hiring a criminal. The bottom line here? Even if someone does have a state issued card, you still need to conduct criminal conviction and reference checks on your own.

Psychological testing - very good in its place, but it depends on the test. One with straight yes/no answers is not going to be as good or as helpful as one which lets the applicant explain his answers. Also the old fashioned "honesty" tests may not be as reliable as one would think. (After a few years in this industry, being realists, not many of us could pass those tests either.)

Some of the better tests or indicators on the market are offered by Hilson Research: Hilson Personnel Profile/Success Quotient and Inwald Personality Inventory (reliability & integrity), and the Stanton Corporation: The Stanton Survey and the Stanton Profile (attitudinal based as opposed to personality based). Both these companies list security providers as their clients.

Verifying previous employments with former employers. Very good, except for some minor problems: (1) your prospective employee may not have listed all his employers on the application; (2) previous employers may not respond in a timely manner, if at all, (3) if the company has gone out of business, there may not be any way to confirm or refute this information, and (4) dishonest applicants often list relatives or friends who will confirm whatever information is provided.

Additionally, since many employers are afraid of being sued for defamation or libel, they refuse to do anything more than confirm name, SS# and dates of employment. Even when the derogatory information is true, no one wants to go through the time and expense of defending what may be a frivolous lawsuit.

In fact, Sue Willman, a labor attorney with Payless Cashways Inc. of Kansas City, MO., states that employers are getting into the litigation act themselves and have filed negligent referral suits against other companies for not informing them of bad experiences with their former workers.

That leaves employers in a Catch-22. If you don't provide negative information, another company can sue you for negligent referral. So what's a company to do?

There is one more method recently developed and gaining acceptance: an industry-specific database of employment histories. The security industry needs to protect itself from individuals who could put its members at legal and economic risk. The way to do this is through a co-operative effort, pooling information into a common database. This method of verifying employment as the first step can save employers not only the cost and effort of conducting the further background checks previously mentioned, but also the additional fees for registration and fingerprint fees for employees who may be no call/no shows or who do not work long enough to cover the cost of their registrations or the uniforms they haven't returned.

The retail industry has for many years maintained a database of people picked up for shoplifting and employees terminated for theft from their member stores. Whenever someone applies for employment in the retail sector, the stores access their association database to find out if the applicant has ever been picked up for shoplifting or fired for theft, regardless of whether any criminal charges were pressed.

Sue Willman encourages employers to establish a network through which companies provide each other essential facts about former employees. "There is an underground network," she claims, "and anyone who denies it is either out of the loop or not being honest."

One such industry specific network database for security officers is maintained by Guardscreen, in Metuchen, NJ. Guardscreen was specifically created for just one purpose - to enable companies to exchange employment information on security officers in a timely and efficient manner, even when the prospective employee omits that information from the application. Information is listed by the applicant's name, social security number, and past employment so prospective employers can quickly compare Guardscreen's profiles to candidates' application forms. If there is a discrepancy in that the applicant omitted a previous job, verification of the omission with either the applicant or the omitted agency gives the prospective employer the option to stop the screening process. The verification of the omission protects the employer from the possibility of frivolous legal action. Information that you get from Guardscreen (or any reporting agency) is protected under the Fair Credit Reporting Act under a provision [section 610 (e)] that protects reporting agencies, as long as the information is employment related and not malicious in nature. That's a protection that an employer does not have when obtaining information directly from or releasing information directly to another employer.

Earl Holmes, Director of Operations for EIP in Kenilworth, NJ states: "In the four months that we've been using Guardscreen, we've eliminated at least 15 people who had falsified their applications. At a per report cost of less than 10% of the state registration fees, I can't afford not to use Guardscreen." Mr. Holmes said that in every case, they confirmed with the applicant that he had omitted a previous employment from his application and stopped the processing at that point. He further reports his company has not had any repercussions to date.

The following items should be considered when joining an industry network or using an industry specific database:

1- Who will have access to your information? How will you be able to access this information? How will unauthorized access be restricted, and how will the company guarantee this restriction?

2- Will the company reveal your employee information to anyone else or exchange this information with any other industry or outside source?

3- What are the guarantees of accuracy of the information in the database? Who inputs this information, especially regarding terminations, into the database? If the database provider does not enter the information, does it guarantee the accuracy of the information, and how is this done?

4- Are you charged piecemeal, by each employment history, or by a full report?

5- Are there any hidden fees? Any equipment or software to purchase?

6- If termination information from another agency is received by the database after you have made an inquiry, is the database provider capable of relaying this information to you? More important, will they notify you?

7- If the company maintains a database for more than one industry, how many names - not entries, but names - are there in the security database? Remember, each name can generate more than one entry, and a database of 1 million names will do the security industry no good if 950,000 of those names are for people in other industries.

Author information- Fern Abbott, President of Guardscreen, is a licensed private detective and certified polygraphist. She is an 18 year member of ASIS, of NCISS, and a founding member of the Association of Professional Investigators and Security Providers.

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William T. Hill, "Getting Help From The Outside," Security Management, July 1990, Special Supplement

Corporate Security Newsletter, Business Research Publications; Vol. 20, #16, 8/26/943

Corporate Security Newsletter, Business Research Publications; Vol. 20, #16, 8/26/94

Guardscreen.com