employers are looking beyond the résumé · once suzy’s initial meeting and resume review are...

28 � NEW ENGLAND CONDOMINIUM � December 2008

By Lisa Iannucci

Employers

are Looking

Beyond the

Résumé

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December 2008 � NEW ENGLAND CONDOMINIUM � 29

The news can be disturbing. In Connecticut,a condominium’s administrative assistantpleaded guilty to illegally cashing more

than $9,000 worth of association checks. InNew York, Governor David Paterson orderedthat his entire executive chamber staff undergobackground checks after discovering that hischief of staff hadn’t paid $300,000 in backtaxes. In Florida, a management companyemployee was fired — and police notified —after a volunteer board member discovered a“discrepancy” that ultimately revealed the lossof nearly $1 million from a large association.

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Plain and simple — you want tohire good, safe employees and thosewith intent to work in your buildingshould have a thorough backgroundscreening to protect the building andits residents. After all, these employeeswill have access to the residents’ homesand personal information, packages andbuilding systems. Property managershave a duty to provide the associationswith the best people for the job — andthat means putting potential employeesthrough a rigorous screening processto weed out candidates with recordsof terminations, disciplinary action or criminal history.

There are many methods to usewhen checking a potential employee’sbackground, starting with phone calls

to confirm schooling and previousemployment, to credit report checksand criminal background checks. Withtoday’s Internet access, some employersare using such social networking sitesas Facebook and MySpace to get anidea of their possible new hire‘s hobbies,personal life and former employmentand schooling — although using personal information from these sites,which is otherwise illegal to knowand use against the applicant, mayopen up liability issues. Facebook’sown user agreement adds a word ofcaution: “You understand that theService and the Web site are availablefor your personal, non-commercialuse only,” and attorneys specializingin employment law have said that

employers may open themselves todiscrimination suits from rejectedapplicants because so much personalinformation is posted on such sites.

But even without those social net-working sites, information on nearlyeveryone abounds online. Have yougoogled your name lately? Chancesare good that someone else has. Asurvey by ExecuNet, a Connecticut-based job search and recruiting net-work, found that 77% of employersused search engines to check thebackgrounds of job candidates — andmore than a third had used Internetinformation to eliminate a job seekerfrom consideration.

Step One: Initial Meeting & Résumé ReviewA printed resume is the first impression of your appli-

cant, and can tell a lot — both positive and negative.Cathleen Donahue is the recruiting specialist at John M.Corcoran and Company, in Braintree, Massachusettsand, like many employers, says a resume is her first lookinto the candidate’s background.

“I’m looking for job stability and loyalty, not a ‘jobhopper’ as we call it,” says Donahue.

One red flag in the resume of an applicant — we’ll callher “Suzy” in this article — might be a gap in employment.If there are any gaps, it’s important to find out why Suzywasn’t working for that period of time. “I’ll find out whatthe reason is that they aren’t working and what intereststhem about the open position,” says Donahue. “Wereview their experience and ask them if they’ve visitedour website. I’m a firm believer in thinking that if theydon’t do their homework, are they really interested inworking for us?”

Step Two: Reach Out & Check on SomeoneOnce Suzy’s initial meeting and resume review

are complete, pick up the phone and confirm thateverything on the resume is accurate. Another redflag is if Suzy were to lie about where she went toschool or where she was previously employed.Susan L. Pickman, Ph.D., CFE, an investigationsand fraud examination expert in New York, advisesthat when calling former employers, it’s vital to askfor the person designated by the hire, not simplycall the number that the employee has provided.

“In one instance where we did not do the initialbackground check, we found that the call to theemployee’s supposed ‘reference’ during the hiringprocess was actually directed to her friend at aphone number paid for by the employee,” she says.

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Step Three: A Credit CheckThe Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) sets the standards

for screening for employment and defines a backgroundcheck as a consumer report. Before you can obtain a report,you must notify your applicant in writing that you aredoing so.

“A credit report is important because you can verifytheir social security number, name, residences they mightnot have listed, any liens, judgments or credit problems,”says Jim Murphy, president, Sutton Associates, Long Island.

However, employers do understand that maybe Suzy is agood employee just with bad credit. “You would never makea hiring decision based on credit alone,” says Murphy.

“People have businesses that go belly up, or they wentthrough a divorce or had medical problems. However, if Isee a report of someone who is 45 with no credit (Editorialnote: as opposed to no debt) or a 20-year-old with toomuch credit, these are out of the norm and can give youvaluable information about your applicant.”

If you choose not to hire Suzy, or any candidate, becauseof her credit report, you must notify her and provide a copyof the report. But mistakes can be found on any credit reportand Francis Kenney, president of Celadon Securities Inc.,in Boston, gives the credit report back to the applicant aswell as a second chance to get it straightened out.

“Everything is taken into account and we’re sensitive toit,” says Kenney.

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Step Four: Criminal CheckHypothetical scenario — you hire a new porter to work in your building,

but you haven’t done a criminal check on him. As a result, you aren’t awarethat the young man has had previous assault arrests. One day, you receive atext that a young woman who lives in the building has been assaulted bythis new employee. Murphy, who spent several years working for the FBI,says that “not only is the woman hurt, but the liability can be great.”

In addition to preventing any potential liability issues, Murphy advisesproperty managers to follow what the courts say about background checks.“If you’re doing a background check on one employee, you need to do thesame background check for everyone applying for the same position,” saysMurphy. “It eliminates any potential discrimination problems. For example,if the employer has set a standard of not hiring anyone who has had an actof violence and one applicant finds out another applicant, with the samecriminal histories, was hired, that’s a basis for a lawsuit too.”

Criminal checks of potential employees can be done online or by professionalsecurity companies and any marks on a criminal check are huge red flags.

“In checking criminal histories, it is well to hire an organization to checkon what jurisdictions the prospective hire has lived in, not just what theytell you verbally or write in an application,” says Pickman. “Once you haveall the information, you can make an appropriate decision. However, if theprospective hire lies to you, I wouldn’t grant them benefit of the doubt. Ifthey make full disclosure, then you should consider the nature of the incident,their age at the time and their present age, the circumstances and the recordsince that time.”

For Donahue, criminal record background is not acceptable, but agreesthat it depends on the offense. “And how long ago it happened,” she says.

Pickman also recommends that property managers search all records, notonly criminal, but restraining orders for domestic abuse, civil cases for violentincidents, and military and federal and court records.

“There are a substantial number of other checks that we perform for ourclients,” she says. “Hopefully you will have the right employee for a longtime to come.”

Step Five: Don’t Ask That!While you want to find out as much

as you can from Suzy, your potentialhire, there are questions you simplycannot ask, because they may be discriminatory. “You can’t discriminatebased on race/color and age, so it’sbest just to ask questions based onthe job,” says Murphy. “You can asksomeone what their date of birth is soyou can do the background properly,but you can’t ask them their age.”


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Step Six: Here’s Your Cup...A drug test is a test of urine, sweat,

blood or other body fluids to determineif the applicant has been using anydrugs recently. Although once morecommon than they are today, drugtests are still used and can be a part of a successful employee backgroundcheck. “There are some industrieswhere it’s mandatory — such as thetransportation industry,” says Murphy.“You can also mandate a drug screeningtest for everyone coming in as well asa random drug test.”

If Suzy passes all the required back-ground checks, she can be hired forthe job, but just remember that Suzyhas an obligation to report any otherwrongdoings in the building.

“The employee should be taught toalways report criminal behavior,” saysMurphy. “If she sees a crime beingcommitted — say a domestic violencecrime or if she sees children going inand out of a suspicious apartment —and does nothing about it and someonegets hurt, it can be a serious liabilityissue for the building.”

These background checks andphone calls may take time to perform,but in the long run it will be worth itto have an employee that you knowyou can trust to do the job and do it well.

Lisa Iannucci is a freelance writer and afrequent contributor to New EnglandCondominium magazine.

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