Corra Daily Planet

The Music Dies as MTV Hands Out Pink Slips

Once upon a time MTV was the newest,  hottest thing to reach cable television.  I remember during its early years when critics predicted it wouldn’t last and that viewers would get tired of watching music videos.    Well,  they were right.  Sort of.

The initial model for MTV as it turns out was a good one.   Record companies, back when there was still a music business, provided gratis promotional videos for MTV to air in rotation on its channel.     MTV used video jocks, different than record jocks, to talk their stuff and engage the audience between videos.   There were comments, interviews, more promotionals, and sometimes some funny situations.  It happens when your video jocks are stoned or at least seem like they are.

The videos themselves were thematic and for the time anything for puerile and boring to sensual and cutting edge.   It was a great time to be in the music video business, and more than one director made the crossover to feature films.

then themusic business fell on hard times. Not much sense in making a plethora of music videos for CD’s no one would pay for anyway.   So MTV shifted formats, utilizing reality themese and other situationals to keep running.   We soon had young person’s soap operas, covering all the issues that seem so pressing at youth anf all off the priority list over time.   So whether it was the aging of the audience or just general malaise, ratings have declined.

Now MTV is laying off 75 mid-level executives.   The company blames the recession.   That means 75 more people in the entertainment and media business will be unemployed and looking for work, calling their friends to see what it is out there.  They will encounter a tight market for sure, where more companies  even in the loosey goosey entertainment world are conducting background checks as part of their pre-employment screening process.   With a shortage of jobs and in a lousy economy, employers can afford to be picky.

It will be interesting to see if MTV reconstitutes itself.   As with General Motors and a fair portion of other American industrial icons, it may pose as leaner and meaner.   It may offer the same and accept the decline in viewership as a matter of attrition.   But with 75 more mid-level executives out of work, MTV will have to think of something.

Montana City Modifies Its Social Networking BackgroundChecks

The City of Bozeman, Montana has agreed to modify its preemployment screening policy with respect to monitoring employment applicants’ social networking sites as part of its background checks.  According to the Billings Gazette, job applicants were being asked for their user names and passwords so that human resources personnel could examine any information.

Bozeman has not been the only employer to review job applicants’ social networking sites.  Increasingly, this has become a common practice.   It is argued by those who conduct such exploratory background searches that what job candidates post on their social networking sites reveals much about their character.   Those for it argue that there are strong indicators as to whether an employment candidate is serious about his work, whether he besmirches his past employers, and whether he behaves in a manner not fitting his prospective position.

But others argue this is not always an indication of someone’s character.   It has been pointed out that younger employees, especially, may be looser and freer with their postings, but that does not necessarily prove we either incompetence or a negligent character.

We at Corra Group have been asked form time to time whether we would conduct such social networking reviews as part of our background checking program.   We feel that this is a very tough call.   Establishing thresholds for character assessment is a difficult at best.   There is also the issue of social relativism.   What may offensive to one person is inoffensive or even humorous to someone else.   Different jobs in different industries call for creative and innovative thinking, and sometimes such thinking requires outlets where the employees can blow off a little harmless steam.   Social networking sites provide such outlets.

Corra Group believes that most employers would do better with professional reference background searches, rather than monitoring social websites.   But then, that is just an opinion.   The fact is, municipalities may regard the practice, as evidenced in City of Bozeman, an invasion of privacy.    Other employers may think it is fitting and in keeping with weeding out the less desirable job candidates from their working environments.     Like I said, it’s a tough call, and one that will not be resolved in the near future.  In fact, you can expect to see more employers eyeballing the social networking sites.     Especially in a bad economy where employment candidates are plentiful and recruiting may require greater discrimination.

But for the City of Bozeman, anyway, it’s no more FaceBook.

Check them out  before you hire.

When Harvard Lays Off Employees, You Know It’s a Rough Economy

News agencies are reporting that Harvard University is laying off 275 of its employees due to the drop in endowments.    Most of the layoffs were in the administrative, technical, and clerical sectors.  This is always an additional burden for the remaining workers.  On one hand they are luck to have kept their jobs.  On another, they have to take up the slack of the laid off employees.

Since Harvard is one of the richest schools, it definitely shows this is a difficult economy when its endowments are down.   As Harvard has a tradition of graduating students who go on to notable success in every industry, one has to wonder if they are kicking in some bucks as a show of gratitude.   When considering that there are Wall Street Executives who went o Harvard, you would think they have parted with at least a portion of their bonus money to keep up the University’s finer traditions.  But who knows?

Harvard has kept faculty salaries at their current rates for a couple of years now.    Five hundred employees opted for voluntary retirement.   There are other cost cutting measure in effect.   But when one thinks that this economic downturn has affected Harvard so adversely, you have to wonder what smaller, poorer colleges and universities are going through.

One supposes at Harvard and other colleges and universities the human resources departments are very quiet these days.  No recruitment, no pre-employment screening.  No background checks.  Just some bored and worried human resource personnel bored and worried for their own jobs.   People doing busy work, catching up on paperwork, playing with their paper clips in order to pass the time of day.   Before cobwebs emerge from their filing cabinets, perhaps the economy will turn around.   Once thing for sure, for most schools around the country, this recession has certainly been an education.

Form I-9 expiring 6/30/09 is still valid after it expires

The USCIS issued a press release today announcing that the current Form I-9 Employment Eligibility Form, will continue to be valid beyond its June 30, 2009 expiration date. USCIS has requested that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approve the continued use of the current version of Form I-9. While this request is pending, the Form I-9 (Rev. 02/02/09) will not expire.
USCIS will update Form I-9 when the extension is approved. Employers will be able to use either the Form I-9 with the new revision date or the Form I-9 with the 02/02/09 revision date at the bottom of the form.

Corra’s online electronic I-9 form will be updated automatically when the USCIS updates the form.  Corra is a designated agent with E-Verify and can provide you with paperless electronic I-9 software that is fully integrated with your Corra background screening account.

Form I-9
Background Checks
E-Verify
Designated Agent

Now For The Absurd, People on Terror Watch List Are Buying Guns

So after nine years of rhetoric about the dangers from terrorists and the need for a more stringent homeland security, CNN reports that people on the Terror Watch List are buying guns and explosives.   It’s not that they are buying these guns and explosives in distant countries.   They are buying them right here in the USA.   How convenient.   For them.

The Terror Watch List is one of the background checks many employers will run on employment candidates.   It is a standard, as is the OFAC report, the acronym for the Federal Assets Office report, listing persons and businesses that are not allowed to work or operate in this country.

The catch is this.  According to the GAO (Government Account Office) the mere fact that someone is on the Terror Watch List does not prohibit him from buying firearms.  That person must also be a convicted felon or, heaven forbid, and illegal immigrant.   But if you are a potential terrorist, according to the law, go ahead and buy some weapons…what do we care?

Coupled with the fact that the Terror Watch list is rife with inaccuracies– meaning there are innocent people mistakenly listed and names that logn ago should have been removed– the fact that those who are legitimately on the List can buy weapons not only borders on absurdity,  but travels well past absurdity to a new range of surrealism.

It should be noted that the GAO has stated that a person listed on the Terror Watch List is not necessarily involved in terrorist activity.   What a relief.

Tips on Pre-Employment Background Checks for Employers

The majority of employers today conduct background checks.  The belief is that it is necessary to perform due diligence in order to assure qualified employees and to protect fellow employees and clients from harm or foul play.     I would agree with this general belief and add that in these times it is increasingly necessary to run a series of background checks as part of your pre employment screening program.     Given the tough economy, it is likely job candidates in desperation will provide misleading and inaccurate information about their resume and even lie about their pasts.

It is all but mandated that employers conduct social security traces and criminal background checks on their employment candidates.   This is the bare minimum.   These basic background searches are often sufficient for entry level positions.   They can work for laborers, clerical workers, and temporary help.  If the person also drives for you, you may want to conduct Motor Vehicle Driving Records Searches.  The MVR search will not only reveal their driving records but may indicate other behavior patterns, such as substance abuse or desultory lifestyles.   DUI’s or failures to appear in court are indications of this sort of behavior.

Credit checks will also reveal sense of fiscal discipline and financial management.  Those who are experiencing financial turmoil often have the greatest potential to make desperate moves.    The thing you need is for your newest employee to be your silent partner, to steal cash, inventory, or even supplies from you.   There is also the added and frightful possibility that a desperate employee could steal your proprietary data and sell it to your competitors.   There was a case in Los Angeles, recently, where a healthcare employee for a large hospital stole the financial records of patients and bilked the insurance companies out of $350,000 in false claims he had diverted to his own account.

For mid-management and executive level hires, the employment verification search can be very important.   This and the professional reference check will indicate whether someone is looking for work because he was laid off or downsized, or because he was part of the dead wood his past employer could get rid of at an opportune moment.   In this case that opportune moment would be the dreadful economy.

The education verification is extremely important.   If people lie on their resumes, most often they will lie about either their criminal background or their education.    Enough employment candidates claim degrees when they in fact are listed as enrollment only.  Some of the more imaginative or desperate souls list a degree when they never attended that college at all.

There are other searches that may service those in the financial industry.   The Federal Criminal and Federal Civil Searches are very important, as they research any involvement in white collar crimes and financially related violations.   County Civil Searches will help avoid embarrassment from hiring fund raisers and liaisons to the community that currently have lawsuits against them.

It may behoove an employer to conduct a corporate records search on a key executive.   The corporate records search would show if the employment candidate was affiliated with another company where it could reflect a conflict of interest.

Drug searches have become more prevalent.  Certain industries, like healthcare, mandate that employment candidates undergo a ten panel drug test.   The ten panel drug test is often prevalent in defense industry related companies, as well.   Some employers will conduct a five panel drug test, which they feel is appropriate for their needs.   Given the liability issues, poor performance, violence,  retraining, and related issues in the workplace that are attributable to substance abuse,  that small deposit of urine may go a long way in keeping employer costs down.

Some employers monitor the social networks to assess a candidate’s behavior and to determine if they are a worthwhile candidate.   This, for me, as an option that may or may not prove all that accurate.  Candidates who may be “characters” in their private lives may still be valuable and talented members of any working environment.  Nevertheless, some employers believe this is a bellwether of performance and pass judgment accordingly.   I will leave that up to you.

In all, conducting background checks is a requisite part of our hiring process.    I hope this guide sheds some light on what searches to consider when hiring your employment candidates.

San Francisco Trains Undocumented Felons in a Tough Job Market

Okay, so as everybody knows, this is a very tough economy.   The job market is lousy.   Millions have been laid off work, and for every open position you have hundreds if not thousands clamoring for employment.

I suppose it surpasses even the more esoteric irony then that in San Francisco’s District Attorney started a training program that included illegal immigrants who were convicted drug felons.  The program trained them for jobs they couldn’t hold legally in the United States.   Of course when the convicted felons had completed their training, their criminal records were expunged.   Their criminal  slates were wiped clean.

Upon reading the related news article in the Los Angeles Times I thought at first that the city district attorney’s office was not conducting adequate background checks on its employment training candidates.   Apparently, this was not the case.  In fact, the convicted felons were deliberately selected for job training in order to keep the undocumented felons out of prison.

In some cases it backfired.   Some of the trainees, upon completing the course, went out and committed additional violent crimes.   Not good.   District Attorney, Kamala Harris, who prides herself, apparently, on training undocumented workers for jobs they can never hold,  is currently running for California’s State Attorney General.    She termed her allowing these felons to be trained for jobs, “a mistake.”    The program has since been modified so that illegal immigrants incapable of holding these jobs are no longer admitted to the program.

In fairness, Back on Track, has been praised, overall, even by some of Harris’ detractors.

Employment Branding Seiminar

Mitzi Adwell, Talent Manager at The Newman Group, will be hosting a webinar on Employment Branding and taking control of your Employment Value Proposition.    The webinar is being conducted in conunction with  ERE.net between 2 and 3 PM Eastern time, on June 29th.   The price is right; it’s free.

This webinar will help you define the distinction between your company and your competitors.   It will help you understand the best means to promote the qualities that make your company unique and therefore more attractive than others in your industry.

Despite the economic downturn, this is a good time to learn to understand and market your company so that you attain the optimum employment branding presence.   This is but one aspect of your preemployment screening program that will assist you in recruiting the best job candiates in the short run and in the future.

Mitzi Adwell suggest that the following attend the webinar–

ERE webinars are particularly suited for the following individuals:

• Staffing directors and VPs
• Recruitment managers
• Corporate recruiters
• Third-party recruiters
• CEOs and top HR executives in talent-driven industries
• Other HR professionals who are tasked with evaluating the recruiting process

To register, just click on the provided link.