Florida Governor, Charlie Crist, gave praise to a new law designed to protect the elderly and the young from malevolent care givers serving mainly the young and the old.   According to the Florida Newswire, House Bill 7069, mandates employees pass  state and federal fingerprint screening, equivalent to a level 2 background check, before they are eligible to work  with elderly, children and persons with disabilities in certain care settings.   The same holds true for health care employees working in residential or home care settings.  They must have a Level 2 screening before having contact with clients, or having access to client property, funds or living areas.

Governor Crist signed this bill into law earlier this year.   It is a good bill and shows that the State of Florida is determined to protect its more vulnerable citizens by requiring background checks on its caregivers.   I have written about this matter before, including one article entitled, Ongoing Need for Background Checks for Florida Caregivers.   This new law results from a review ordered by Governor Crist where select state agencies examined legal requirements for screening individuals who provide care to children, the elderly and persons with disabilities to review current background-screening policies.

There conclusion, obviously, was for more rigorous background checks.   We at Corra Group applaud Governor Crist and those who voted in favor of House Bill 7069.  This should add a little more punch to the background checks conducted on those who may consider malicious behavior toward Florida’s young and old.

Check them out before you hire.

We think of Switzerland and more to the point the Swiss Banking System as secure and very confidential.   In fact, Swiss Banking has becomes a catch-phrase for confidentiality and security.   But then the Wall Street Journal Reports that two former employees of  HSBC Holdings PLC in Switzerland have reportedly sent emails to financial authorities in Germany, the U.K., and France, offering access to data on thousands of the bank’s clients.  This could be construed of some pretty nasty stuff.

Both of the former employees denied any wrongdoing or at least they denied breaking any laws.   There is no evidence that the two former employees attempted to profit from the data.  Okay.  Maybe they were trying to make a point.  The two also claimed to have warned HSBC there were security vulnerabilities in their data storage system.   HSBC claims they never received any warnings.   French authorities raided the house of one of the ex-employees and confiscated the data on the thousands of client accounts.

So this is a bank in Switzerland, where a large portion of the world’s money passes through on a regular basis.    This is where security is supposed assured and buttoned up.  Switzerland.  I think it’s fair to say for most of you reading this, you are not Switzerland.  You have a business and like any other business you have sensitive data and proprietary information.   So if a bank in Switzerland is vulnerable to its former employees helping themselves to client account information, then where are you in the food chain?

Obviously, keep you tech security as tight as possible.  But you also need to know the types of persons you are hiring for the job.   It is essential, therefore, to conduct background checks on an job applicants as part of your pre-employment screening program.   In today’s world, it is crazy not to do so.   While background checks will not guarantee employee theft and their stealing your sensitive data, they go a long way in determining who may be likely to start swiping your confidential information.   Who would be likely to maybe offer it up to the competition or to exchange such information in exchange for a nice raise and gainful employment elsewhere.   Doesn’t  happen?  Think again.

I have written about this before.  Many times.  One such article was entitled, Background Checks on Cyber Security Hires.

Most companies by now are ordering background checks for pre-employment screening.   I would suggest that you expand the types of background searches for a more comprehensive range.   Cutting corners with background checks may be a sure way to cut your own throat.   Consider your hires and how much access they have to sensitive information.   And then check them out before you hire.

Anyone who has gone to the movies, read a mystery or otherwise taken a breath in Western Culture knows the term,” inside job.”    For those who have been living in another dimension for the past century or so, an inside job quite simply means that either employees or someone on the inside of your business was responsible or assisted in some kind of theft.

Sometimes this is the theft of inventory.  Other times it relates to the stealing or sensitive databases and proprietary information.   Employee theft as it is also known occurs with alarming frequency.  Given the economic downturn there is a marked increase in the rate of employee theft.  People need money and are willing to commit desperate acts to line their pockets.   I don’t know how many times we have had clients tell us that one of its employees got a little funky with their corporate credit card and went on a regrettable but expensive spending spree.  This results in having to let the employee go, or even press charges.   The old credit cards have to be retired and no ones have to be issues.  It’s a pain.

Often employee theft is neither cheap nor petty.  We all know what are databases are worth.   There is access to credit information and our competitors would love to know the ins and outs of our accounts.   A wily but unsavory employee could choose to put it on the market.   Not all that long ago former Coca Cola employees tried to sell Pepsico Coke’s secret formula.  The Pepsi people turned them in.   Other companies may not be as ethical.

According to the New York Times, a Saks employee ran up $130,000 in false returns and siphoned it of for himself with gift cards.  Overall retail theft is $36 Billion, annually.  Employees are accountable for a  portion of that, increasing in 2008 to more than $15 Billion.  Pretty alarming.

Some employees will find themselves in desperate straits and will still to make up for extravagances and the vices that brought them to the abyss.  While there really no guarantees, running background checks on your employment candidates is a wise idea.  It is also prudent to conduct recurring screening as part of your over all employment program.   At least run the criminal records search and possibly the MVR Motor Vehicle Driving Report, as this will tell you much about substance issues and desultory behavior.   Credit Reports are an important component of the background checking program.   Credit reports will indicate whether an employee or employment candidate is in a bad way, economically speaking, and prone to steal from your company.

Employee theft is a growing concern.  With the economy the way it is, we don’t see it subsiding anytime soon.

Check them out before you hire.

The Authorization for Release or Consent Form at first appears like a menial and inconsequential document.  It is anything but that.  For employers to comply with the Fair Credit Report Act, FCRA, it is essential that the employer have its job candidates fill out and sign this consent form.    The signature on the consent form is proof that the employment candidate has agreed to submit to background checks.

The employer is then required to keep the authorization and release form on file.   Even if the employer ultimately decides not to hire the candidate, the employer must keep the consent form on file for a minimum of three years.  If a current employee leaves the company, then that employer is, likewise, responsible for keeping the consent form on file for  a minimum of three years.  Of course, while the employee continues to work for the employer, the employer must retain the consent form in perpetuity.

Without possession of a signed consent form, the employer risks a litigation and liability issues from dissatisfied or rejected job candidates who later claim the employer ran the different background checks without authorization.  As conducting pre-employment or employment background checks without authorization is in violation of the FCRA and the federal labor laws, this can mean trouble for the employer.   The last thing employers need is expensive litigation and public embarrassment.

Corra Group has always provided authorization and release forms for any client wishing to conduct background checks.  While Corra Group will accept most client’s personal consent forms, we recommend that our clients not be too specific in the types of background checks they will be researching.  While some limit the consent form to allow for retrieval of criminal records history, or Motor Vehicle Driving Reports, MVRs, etc.  it is always better to be more general and allow for flexibility.   By issuing a more universal consent form, there are few if any limitations to the types of background searches an employer can research.    Additionally, if an employer marks its release form for “employment,” and not “Preemployment”  employer is free to expand its searches at any time.

Corra Group has upgraded its release form so that it is writable.  This should make your human resources personnel happy as your employment candidate is now able to type in his information and then sign by hand.   The new process makes for a more legible consent form, and  with the identifiers easy to read there is less of a chance for making mistakes with your background checks.

If you would like, we are happy to email you our new consent form.  Or find in online under services on our Corra Group home page.    Of course, there is no charge for providing our new consent form.

Remember, check them out before you hire.

It is becoming common practice for states to raise the DMV fee for Motor Vehicle Driving Records.    Some states have already raised fees for their MVRs and some, so far, have not.  As the states need money due to economic downturn and budget constraints, we expect every state to raise fees in the future.

As the trucking and transportation industry needs motor vehicle driving records or MVRs to remain compliant with the Department of Transportation, or DOT, we can chalk this off as the price of doing business.  The rate increases for the MVRs while notable at still rather nominal.

So, as I posted in a previous posting, Two More States Raising Fees for MVRs, Idaho and Alabama will be charging more through their DMVs for their driving abstracts.   As of January 1st, 2010, Idaho fee for the MVR will be increased from $6.00 to $9.00.  The Alabama DMV fee for the driving abstract will increase from $7.00 to $7.75 per MVR abstract.   Please take note of this.

Welcome to the New Year.   Most of us hope for a rejuvenated  and believe the worst part of the recession is behind us.  We are hoping to find jobs in a reinvigorated market and hoping our businesses are, finally, back on track.   On a broader level, we are reviewing the state of our nation and wanting to make it better.   Some claim  the United States is in decline, and they are looking for the America of old.   Some believe the best years for America lie ahead.

While the perspective may vary, we all wish for a better country.  We all look to a robust economy, where people are gainfully employed at meaningful jobs.   We are grateful for our economic recovery but we know we can do better.

Since it is the start of the New Year, I thought I would repost this article I wrote about six or seven months ago.   It received some notice on this blog and in the other venues it was placed.    It was entitled  A New WPA for Rejuvenating American Manufacturing . I believe it was pertinent six months ago and that it is even more relevant today.

Enjoy–

The news is depressing.   It is not so much the news that is depressing but the various cable shows and the assorted politicians and pundits who populate these shows, filling the air with platitudes of every shape and variety.   As the economy had declined and times have gotten tougher, there is a lot more hemming and hawing among the so-called experts.   It appears increasingly, to quote the noted screening writer, William Goldman, that “nobody knows nothing.”

Sure, they get paid for voicing answers, so there will always be answers.   The answers may be irrelevant and my not even address the questions, but they are answers nevertheless.   Everybody needs a payday.    As for the politicians who appear in the news, we would sometimes feel a whole lot better if they would merely admit they really don’t have an answer for all the challenges facing us and they are only doing the best they can.  Most of which is out of desperation.

There are general threads the pundits allow.   The first is the more intelligent, where people with certain expertise project what actions they would take and what actions they believe should be taken.   The second group discusses other people and comments on their actions and whether or not these are positive acts that will rescue the economy.   The third group mainly inveighs some jingoistic nonsense along partisan lines and repeats tiresome mantras that are supposed to win points for their party or cause.

Of course there are a number of themes interlaced among  these general threads.   How is the new President Obama doing?  Is the country going Socialist?  Is there an end in sight to this Recession?     And, of course, the omnipresent chestnut, comparing the travails of Wall Street to Main Street.

In translation, this invites a discussion of whether the increasingly expensive bailouts are worth it and really helping the average American.  It is also code for those thieving rogues in the banking and financial industries, versus the poor but honest working Joe and the small business guy in need of a loan to keep his business afloat.  Factor in the housing meltdown, the mortgage crisis, and you pretty much have the picture.

There is also the talk about the breathtaking increase of government expenditure and the run up on our national debt.    Those in favor see it as a necessary evil and contend that there will be long run benefits.   Those opposed see national ruin and gather on Tax Day to make speeches and toss teabags into the river.   Of course they wish their fellow Americans will compare this tepid symbolism to the Boston Tea Party that helped kick off the Revolution.   Comparing the two is like comparing nose picking to a Menage a’Trois.

But none of this is really the issue here.   Simply put, America has stopped making things.  Sure we do some manufacturing, but not enough.   We let others do it for us, and then we wonder how and why we end up poorer and facing second tier status as a nation.   Some of what we still do manage to manufacture is first rate, while other products are sub-par in this competitive environment.   Or too expensive, so the products are not cost competitive with the products of other nations.

Largely, compared to how we once were, we do not make much.  Instead, we call ourselves a service industry.   Or we shuffle papers around in various financial transactions that generate outrageous salaries and illusory profit.  Couple the fact that two thirds of this economy is dependent on consumerism.  Consumerism brought on by money advanced often through false financial statements, commercial and private.   Money that was meted out against overvalued property and goods.

Nevertheless, for the past number of decades we have declared this a viable economy; it is the new America.   We have milked every which way possible.   We have borrowed money from other countries to fortify our spending.    And now we realize we have milked it for as long as we could.   As with most occasions, everybody loves the party, but no one likes to pay the tab and the end of the night.

Our economy has become a charade.   A game of smoke and mirrors. The overheated real estate market was a charade.  An illusion.   Common sense should dictate when houses rise in price to where people can no afford them without the assistance of some trick loan, then we are heading for disaster.

But common sense just ain’t so common.  In fact, it is often difficult to come by when everyone is busy buying stuff and shuffling papers around.  Instead of common sense, we had a… business model.   Not just any business model, but the kind that didn’t take into account failure to pay debt as a hurdle that couldn’t be surmounted.    Despite Newton’s law that everything that goes up must come down, this business model speculated to the contrary.   It was the business model that defied history.

The fact remains, as history has dictated time and again, an economy built on fluff and illusion is doomed to failure.   A civilization too self-absorbed to pay attention to its competition will end up in the second tier or even as a civilization in past tense.  Instead of a bonafide business model, so many financial people love to model, we had instead a game of musical chairs.   When the music stopped, the fun really started.  People found themselves without a chair.

We called this debacle an economy for as long as we could.  We called it the rule and beauty of the free market.   It was never really a free market; it was just a market devoid of regulation.   It was a license to steal.  As history again dictates, you give people a license to steal and they will take it down with a shovel and a rake.

That is exactly what they did.   Of course when things turned sour, as most proponents of the quasi-free market are wont to do they demanded government assistance.   Had they been real free marketers they would have acknowledged they screwed it up big time and would have suffered the consequences.   They would have gone out of business or struggled to survive.  Because in the real free market system you are accountable for your actions.     So instead, they have a more socialistic platform where government helps determine the actions of business.   It’s Karma, I guess, the Yin and Yang.   Some think of it as poetic justice.

So  to quote Oliver Hardy of the seminal comedy team, Laurel and Hardy, “what a fine fix you got us in, Stanley.”   Indeed.  Here we are, out or work, broke, killing time with futile networking or watching pundits on television telling us the things we know or ready.  It’s amazing to see what some of the pundits will say with a straight face  just so they can pose as experts, collecting a pay check and hate mail while swapping dignity for cash.   whether or not they have a clue to what they are talking about.   Perhaps as a formula, the average viewer should calculate the more big words the talking heads like to bandy about, the less they know about the subject.

However, there are some salient points that do come up on these news show discussions.    It is not all for naught.   Fortunately, there are some intelligent souls whose knowledge and insight can supersede the commercial break.   And among the talking points most discussed is comparing this economic downturn to the Great Depression.   There is a debate about how the Roosevelt Administration took it on and whether the methods were successful or a failure.

There is talk about the Works Progress Administration, better known as the WPA.  In short, under the Roosevelt’s New Deal, the WPA with government funding put millions of people to work.   Many of our greatest public projects were built through the WPA.   The Hoover Dam is but one that comes to mind.

Not everybody was thrilled about the WPA.     As with some of Obama’s bankrolling, Roosevelt’s programs looked like an advocate of folly.    Some of its detractors labeled it as Socialist.    They assigned various acronyms to the initials, including “We Poke Along, We Putter Around,” and my favorite, “Whistle, Piss, and Argue.”   But in touch economic times, you have to do something.   And Roosevelt did something.   He also told his friends, the scions of American Industry, you either kick in your share or I will tax it out of you.   Some became more generous in response to that threat.

Today we need a new WPA.   We need  to adapt Roosevelt’s old Great Depression program and develop one that will meet our times.   We need a WPA program that is as sensible as it is proactive.  We as a nation have to go back into production.    It is not enough to devote funding to rebuilding our infrastructure.  We have to develop and produce the new technologies for alternate energy and environmental recover.   We also have to manufacture some of the more basic goods that we can purchase.  You know, the essential stuff, like clothing, shoes, and about half the junk we buy from China that are often inferior and toxic.

It is not easy creating a new WPA.   Or, rather, it is not easy creating a new WPA that actually creates a meaningful legacy by putting us back on track as an economic power and not a diminished civilization on the slippery slide to second tier status.   This does not mean we end globalization but develop the principles in which we have always prided ourselves.   That key principle is self reliance.

Yes, it’s a matter of pride.  We pride ourselves on self-reliance as individuals and as a nation.   At least we did.  Now is the time to separate the practical realities from the lip service.   To be self-reliant means we do not have to run up a steep debt buying energy from other countries or articles based on planned obsolescence.   We can make quality goods that last.    As we had learned in years past, quantity does not surpass quality.  We buy quantity because we have been trained to shop until we drop.  We buy ten cheap articles instead of one good one.   Without branding, a label, most people can’t tell the difference between good quality and poor quality.  And quite often the label is just another lie.

So what do we do?   Well for one thing we take stock of all the factories out there that are lying in ruin.   We look at the rest belt and the more blighted areas where workers haven’t had decent jobs since the manufacturing left the country.   We form teams that rejuvenate and reinvigorate these old factories.   We determine what goods could be manufactured and then we make them.   We make them not the old fashioned way but in modern plants with contemporary technology and business acumen.  It worked for the steel industry.  Why not others?

We combine teams so that they are represented by older workers and executives who are used to economic downturns.   The WPA will need the senior employee who has experience coping with disaster.  Senior workers bring experience to the projects and not just theory.   They can assess what works and what will not, and they may have better management skills in forming the work force.

As the same time you need younger workers who can contribute skills in the newer technologies.   Younger people understand the more modern business practices and how to apply them.   Merely having an MBA is not enough.   We will need well rounded younger people who on the job can develop better interpersonal skills if by no other manner than proximity to the work force.   The younger executive’s experience with the newer technologies would coalesce with some of the older and often stronger business practices that can develop industry for the common good.

And what is the common good?  Essentially, it is moving America forward by putting millions of people back to work.   On one hand it is retraining workers, but on the other it is providing work with which they are at least somewhat familiar.   In the common good, these rejuvenated industries are developed as profitable institutions but not with the absolute emphasis on the bottom line.   Too much emphasis on the bottom line has proven too often to diminish the quality of the work force and the products they make.   Those who invoke only the concept of the bottom line tend to cut corners.   They tend to outsource jobs and industries to foreign countries in order to enforce the code of the bottom line.   In the end, by enhancing the bottom line for a multi-corporations it has also ruined much of American industry.  So make money, but without idol worship of the bottom line.

As for the work force itself, there are enough out of work construction works who would welcome gainful employment by rehabilitating factories and rejuvenating industries.   Surely some will be needed to rebuild the national infrastructure but with the construction industry among the hardest hit, there are skilled craftsman in every region of this country who would like nothing more than to put American back on track.   Especially when a paycheck is involved.

Workers could be paid a salary, but a significant portion of their incomes should come from profit sharing.   Employee co-ops make sense.   It is a self-policing system, fortified with the oversight of both private management and Uncle Sam.   Simply put, if you don’t produce you don’t make money.   If you can manufacture quality goods at competitive price points, then everyone benefits.   Some may declare this Socialism, but then some thought of the original WPA as Socialist.

We are not a Socialist society.  We prospered as small business owners at first, and then as the nation grew so did its companies.   We can base this on the perception it is an amplified form of a smaller business.   Additionally, we are a pragmatic nation.  We have always prided ourselves in all things practical.   We are a nation that likes to do what works.  It doesn’t really matter what you call it.  If it works, do it.  If it doesn’t, then come up with something else.  Clearly, it is time to come up with something else.

So how to finance the new WPA.   Funding is a mix and match between Uncle Sam and the private investor.  Going back to Roosevelt’s threat to his giants of industry, if they don’t contribute he would tax it out of them.   The energy companies, Wall Street, they can all pony up.   Fund our industries here and not in China, India who wherever else we deem the flavor of the month.  If you want national status and tax credits, then fund American industries.  If not, then pay more taxes.

As some have said from the time this nation was born, certain freedoms are not rights, they are privileges.   We utter this absently and then forget its context.   You want to do business here, you contribute to business here.    This is not a charitable obligation to pass the time until things rewrite themselves and some can go back to making obscene salaries and profits.   It is a time to be accountable.   Kick in your share.   We are either in this together, or we are not all in this together.

There are many benefits to a working economy that starts from the bottom up.   There are benefits to manufacturing in our own back yards.   We can develop new technologies that will be needed throughout this century and into the next.  We can develop alternate energy sources.   We can rebuild the infrastructure to make this all possible.

But we can also make things.   We can make things and not just make things up.   We can make things and stop pretending this will all go away and the good old days will come roaring back.  We can forget the world where we can charge things to our hearts’ content, have boats, trinkets, and fourteen houses.   Instead of buying things, we can make things and in doing so we can be assured that most of us can at least make a living.

This is the perfect opportunity for turning our world around.   By forming the teams of younger workers who bring their skills to the party and combining them with older workers who use experience and the wherewithal to survive the hard times, we can rehabilitate the rust belt and other regions where abandoned factories and warehouses dot the landscape like so many eyesores.   We can provide jobs not only to the educated and the technologically advanced but also to the more fundamental working group who, let’s face it, are hard pressed to learn the skill sets we believe are in their capacity.

We can use this time when people are no longer spending like drunken sailors to reassess our values and to determine what is need and what is excess.   We can provide the insight to the underclass and in some cases our middle class that educating their children is far more important than buying a boat or cute little outfits for their pets.   We can make the new WPA a meaningful experience and not just another government entitlement project that costs a lot of money and ends up going nowhere.   It is time that the stimulus packages not only helped the economy get back on its feet but where it also made money for the taxpayers, the ultimate investors.

Instead of importing so many goods to the point of a substantial annual deficit, we can make our own.   Instead of going into debt with China and everyone else to pay for our energy and to pay for our more basic products, we can make our own.   We can make stuff and no longer refer to ourselves as a service industry economy.   Because as solely a service based economy, we risk reducing ourselves to a subordinate role in the global economy.    But couple that with a manufacturing economy, and then we are the reality of the American ethos and not just that of bygone era.

We would be better off for it.   Even if our dogs had to wear their own fur coats.

As the Co-Founder of Corra Group, a background checking service, I have watched with mixture of fascination and concern as more and more public service agencies are discovering many of their employment hires who have criminal records are going undetected.   This is true for State and public service agencies and in the healthcare sector as well.  In some cases the services failed to conduct adequate background checks.  In other cases the services conducted background checks, but by the time they were returned no one either bothered to review them or overlooked some damning information.

As I remarked on one of my blog postings on December 14th, 2009, Temp Nursing Firms Unhealthy for Background Checks and Hiring Practices, there are many egregious occasions where nurses with substance abuse problems, felony convictions, or records as criminal sex offenders, moved around from state to state to find gainful employment in spite of their background histories.   Temporary staffing agencies worked hard to get them hired.  Either the temp agencies did not conduct background checks or did such a perfunctory job that many nurses with criminal convictions were allowed to slip through the cracks.

Now the Los Angeles Times reports that its joint study with ProPublica has initiated a concentrated effort by the California State Board of Registered Nursing to fingerprint its job applicants and conduct background checks, before allowing them to be hired.   Results show that dozens of Registered Nurses have been convicted of serious crimes ranging from murder to sex offenses.   According to the Times article, the Licensing Board either didn’t know about the nurses’ convictions or didn’t act on them once they did.

The joint study from  he Times and ProPublica found that in 115 cases the state had not sought to discipline nurses until they acquired three or more convictions.   It also shows that many of the convictions were for misdemeanors, ranging from drunken driving to petty theft and fraud.  There were in all 1900 such cases and 1,300 were closed without the state taking action.

There are  a number of reasons for this lack of oversight.  Technology needs to be upgraded, and databases need to be updated.  And most of all, responsible parties have to actually conduct these background checks and then review the results when they are returned.    We can blame some of the lackadaisical attitude on budget restrictions due to a bad economy.   We can attribute it to the fat different public service agencies haven’t adjusted to the fact this is a different age and the people they hire, regardless of their position, are not necessarily candidates for  a Norman Rockwell painting.  But then you can also attribute it to the fact that staffing agencies don’t bother conducting background checks and people don’t bother reviewing them once they are returned.

Realize, too, there are nearly 140,000 nurses registered in California.   Proportionately speaking, this is a relatively small percentage that have criminal convictions.  But still, these nurses are the people the public trusts with its well being and its valuables.   We wouldn’t be so trusting if it was, say, someone off the street without nursing credentials.  But the fact that they are Registered Nurses makes us want to trust them.   We are usually sick and vulnerable when we require their services, and psychologically speaking we want to put our hands in someone we can count on.   It’sno smallt hing to fear they will mistreat us, rob us, and steal our drugs.

The Motor Vehicle Driving Report or MVR is a major background check for trucking and transportation firms as well as employers with sales people and delivery people.   The MVR is also a good source of income for States’ Departments of Motor Vehicles, or DMV.   So with all the states suffering from the economic downturn, small wonder we are seeing rates being raised for driving reports.

I have commented on the MVR fee raises on several occasions, including a recent blog.  But for you truckers out there, it makes sense to remind you of the motor vehicle driving records increases.I am sure, before it is all, over, every state will have raised its rates.    Quite a few already have.   As of January 1st, 2010, two more states will join the list.   Idaho will be raising the fees for its MVRs from $6.00 per abstract to $9.00

Alabama will be increasing its fees for motor vehicle driving records from $7.00 per abstract to $7.75.

Hey, it’s still worth the money.

There are any number of articles and advice columns providing employment candidates with tips.   These missives can vary fromthe extremely useful to the very useless.  Reading some of the articles, as a job candidate you have to ask, “tell me something I don’t already know.”

The articles about networking, though unintentional have a darkly humorous tinge to them, as many of the network functions are populated by out of work folk all hitting each other up for jobs.    Nothing to me could be looking for work among fellow job seekers.   With the economy on the downturn, a shortage of jobs, and intense competition, it’s like saying go out there and network for season tickets to Lambeau Field.    People I have spoken to who have attended these networking sessions say most of the time they emerge from these job seeking sessions even more depressed than when they first went in.   Some have alluded to the smell of desperation.

Not that you can blame people.  To be laid off and out of work, living on your savings and unemployment is a horrible feeling.  I know.  I have been there.   Advice givers tell you things like reinvent yourself, but reinvent yourself to do what in a jobless market?  Become a nurse?  Maybe.  But not all of us are cut out for healthcare, which remains one of the few robust industries.

Advice givers in the employment sector are oftengoing on about resumes. What makes a good resume?   What to put in your resume.   Whether to use the chronological format or whether to prioritize with experience, especially if you a more senior employment candidate.   What’s interesting, is when bloggers and article writers issues these nuggets of wisdom you seldom if ever hear any of them stress that you refrain from lying on your resume.     Perhaps the take for granted that everyone applying for a job will be telling the truth.

The fact is people do lie on their resumes.   With the economic downturn and the job crunch, more and more people are lying out of desperation, claiming experience, certifications, and degrees that they just don’t have.    I am not talking here of judgment call stuff or discriminating embellishments.  I am talking about outright lying.

It is one thing to embellish on your job duties.   Make yourself look better.   It is quite another to claim employment history that is totally fictional.   Or,  the more popular choice, claiming education degrees that are fictitious.    Any employer who conducts background checks will most likely discover the fallacy.   Aside from the obligatory criminal records searches, employers will conduct employment verification background searches and education verification background checks.   If employment history or undergraduate or graduate degrees are consequential, then for sure most employers will be checking those out.

Standard practice for most employers is the following philosophy–if the candidate lies about employment history or a college degree, then what else won’t they lie about.   These lies are usually grounds for immediate rejection.

So while employment advisers may assume that most job candidates will be telling the truth on their resumes and give them advice, accordingly, employers may not always share those assumptions.  With diploma mills, specious degrees, and now employment mills, where they provide fictitious  employment verification for a fee,  employers are increasingly wary.    So the first bit of advice to any job candidate–don’t lie on your resume.

Pembroke, Illinois is the poorest town in Illinois.   Almost half the work force is unemployed.   Those who are working are working the relatively menial jobs at the gas station and snack shops.  According to  CBS Chicago,Channel 2,  this little town of 3,000 people, near the Indiana border, has been all but forgotten.

The city has closed two of its  three elementary schools and has dismissed its police force, all for lack of funds.   If there is a fire, the owners don’t rebuild the house.   The charred remains just sit there.

Nestle once had a factory there, and that factory employed 100 people.  But Nestle is gone,  probably offshore somewhere.  It’s more efficient, after all.

We can look at Pembroke and think of other towns that are maybe not in as bad shape but close enough.   The factories are quiet.  Production is limited at best.  The jobs that once made families feel whole are gone.  If any jobs replaced the better ones they are nominal service industry jobs, phone centers and the like.    People are strapped for cash and in debt.  There is really no way out for them.

One thinks of this country in the American century and then wonders what is in store in the decades to come.  Will there be more towns like Pembroke?   While we race and strain to support Wall street during this economic downturn, other than lip service, what are we giving to the places like Pembroke?  What can we give to them, besides more lip service that we try to pass off as hope?

Granted, we are in the recession and the economy is awful.   But a dire economy is in some ways the best time to reflect on how we got here and to reengage in ways that can afford most Americans a decent living.   Can the talk of innovation and how Americans are the hardest working people and actually do something to put them back to work again.

Pt them to work in places like Pembroke and the other small towns and rust belt cities that have been blighted in the last several decades.   As this is the holiday season, in a year where the recession will tighten up our purse strings and keep us from undergoing the gift buying frenzies of the previous years, maybe we should dispense with the rancor and get down to business.   Business in this case on Main Street.