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The Process and Pitfalls of Education Verifications for Employment Screening

Here is the first paragraphs of the article I posted on Recruiting Blogs.

If I must say so myself, for anyone conducting education verificaiton checks, both domestic and international, this is an article well worth reading.

Enjoy…Here is the link for the entire article…RecruitingBlogs.com

While employers have long conducted education verification checks on their employment candidates, it appears that increasingly more staffing and recruiting groups are being made responsible for conducting this and other background checks.   Education history, of course, outside of criminal records, is one of the more significant searches.

For many positions,  education is not just a prerequisite but also vital to employment candidate’s incumbent skill sets and the legitimacy they bring to the job.  Those employment recruits who claim to but who do not possess the required skills can cause untold embarrassment to employer or recruiter alike.  Both can lose clients over it, and in the extreme cases incur law suits.

Most notable, if a candidate lies, chances are he is lying about his education.  With employment history, a fair number of applicants will exaggerate their role  at a job or otherwise stretch the truth.   But seldom do they out and out lie about working for an employer.   This is not so much the case with education histories.  Here is where the employment candidate will attempt to magically transform his two years of college into a full blown Bachelor’s Degree.  Or in some cases, they never set foot inside the school.

I have often wondered why the candidate decides to select the school he has never been to.  Did he like the football team?  The debating club?  The school colors?   Or was it a large university with high levels of enrollment and he thought any degree verification efforts would somehow get lost in the shuffle?  But then sometimes they speak a smaller school, an ivy shrouded liberal arts college in New England or somewhere, where they might think no one would bother searching.   It’s hard to say what goes on in their minds, but I have considered the implications of the schools they select.

To be sure, most employment candidates do not lie about having their college degrees. the overwhelming majority  in fact are reputable and honest when it comes to claiming their certifications and degrees.   Verifying education with most recruits is a fairly simple and straightforward process.  Once we get from the client the type of degree the candidate has obtained,  the name of the school, the location of the school, type of degree, major and year of graduation, the rest is pretty simple.  Either we obtain verification from the school registrar’s office, the name and position of the verifying party, or we get it from the third party databases.  All fine and valid.

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By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.

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