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| Welcome | Welcome to the September 2006 edition of the Credential Check Examiner! This month we look at some risk mitigation suggestion for the fourth quarter, some simple ways to make your interview and hiring process more effective, and how to increase success and productivity in your organization.
As always, please feel free to reply with your comments and suggestions!
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| Suggestions for the Final Quarter of 2006
| The final quarter for 2006 is approaching and the time of year to complete preparations for 2007 is here. In preparing for the New Year, you may consider many options to reduce risk. Various methods are available, from conducting a thorough security analysis of your premises, to employee training on safety and ethics, to a safety check on all equipment and machinery. Another item that is often overlooked is re-screening your employees. Just as applicants are not forthcoming with their criminal past on an application or resume, employees are not eager to inform their superior or human resource department that they have been arrested or had their driving privileges suspended. Re-screening your employees on an annual basis can reduce the liability that you may not be aware of in your company. These checks often include motor vehicle reports (driving histories) county criminal checks, drug testing and national sex offender registries. With various classifications of employees, it is recommended to contact your client service specialist to determine what services best fit your company.
-Timothy D Whiting, Director of Business Development, Credential Check Corporation top
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| Effective Interviewing and Hiring
| Getting beneath the surface of a candidate is often the most difficult part of the interview process. Candidates come to the interview with their “game face” on. One of the most important parts of matching a candidate to an open requirement is determining their “fit” to the team, culture and management style of the hiring manager. The technique that seems to best surface a candidate’s natural behavior is by doing a “history review.” This technique requires approximately 30 to 60 minutes. It starts by asking the candidate to put modesty in their hip pocket. The next step is asking the candidate to take you back to either High School or College depending on the level of experience and education of the individual. Ask the candidate to describe their life in great detail. Ask them about their educational experience, whether they worked during school, what they did, what they liked or didn’t like about their educational experience and repeat that process for their entire career. Don’t be afraid to talk about their personal experiences as well while staying within the bounds of asking legally appropriate questions. You will find that having that discussion and asking such open ended questions will naturally bring out personal experiences as well. It is very important to take an appropriate amount of time to go through this process to break down a candidate’s natural “role playing” posture. The benefits will be tremendous. No one has ever asked for that much information from a candidate before which will produce several benefits. You will learn much more about your candidate than anyone else courting the person, and you will uncover a candidate’s true preferences and gain the ability to match those against your needs and requirements. Make sure to ask open ended questions. This will ensure there is an expectation for a great deal of detail and you can pace the candidate to slow them down if they go too fast or speed them up if necessary. Try this technique in your next interview and it will surely produce information which will be crucial in helping you determine whether you have an overall good fit and make smarter and more effective hiring decisions.
-by David B. Harrell
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| | Turning Difficult Hiring Decisions into Top Performing Employees | Some employers fail to recognize that their organization’s most valuable asset is their employee base. As a result, poor hiring and other employment-related decisions end up costing American business millions of dollars annually in candidate screening, training, productivity, and missed opportunities. In addition, poor hiring decisions further expose organizations to risk by potentially compromising the health and safety of employees and the organization. One bad hire can have a ripple-effect throughout the organization and can have a long-lasting negative impact.
So, how can employers turn perpetually difficult hiring decisions into productive, profitable, and loyal employees? Focusing on a few simple measures can help your organization make better hiring decisions:
- Fully understand your organization’s needs and expectations for the position(s) you need to fill—and communicate those to all applicants. Failure to do so often leads to a mismatch between the candidate and organization as well as significant breakdowns in communication.
- Avoid making snap employment decisions out of desperation. Remember that leaving the position open a couple of extra weeks costs less on all levels than a bad hiring choice does. Follow your complete hiring process and don’t hire the first person who walks in the door.
- Do not neglect to conduct an extensive and thorough background check, including comprehensive reference verifications. Sometimes everything you need to know about a candidate’s potential (or lack of it) for success in your organization is revealed through diligent screening. It is a mistake to just “trust your gut.
- Utilize your interview to its best potential. Don’t ask standard interview questions so that you can avoid receiving canned responses that candidates have prepared in advance. You’ll gain greater insight into the candidate’s capabilities, skill set, motivation, and communications skills by asking unexpected questions.
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| | Safety in the Skies |  Now that we have passed the five year anniversary of September 11th, and with the discovery in recent weeks of a plot in the UK to detonate liquid bombs on board as many as ten planes destined to the US, fear of another terrorist attack remains real for many Americans. For domestic and international travelers alike anxiety, tension and fear may be nearing an all time high. In response to the foiled London terrorist plot, and other similar terrorist threats to international aviation security, the Secretary of Homeland Security has elevated the Homeland Security Advisory System Threat Condition to High, or Orange, for all commercial flights from the United Kingdom to the United States, and to High, or Orange, for all other international flights and all domestic commercial aviation. Additionally, transportation officials have tightened security at airports around the world. Domestically, more than 31,000 Security Officers at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have received specialized training to detect the presence of improvised explosive devices, commonly known as IED’s, or explosives in baggage. The use of specialized canine teams trained in the detection of explosives and explosive residues as well as explosive detection systems such as the “puffer” have also increased. Undoubtedly, if you have traveled in the past four weeks you have felt the effects of longer ticketing lines, security check point lines, and random gate inspections and bag searches. Furthermore, you have surely experienced the restrictions related to carry-on luggage items. When news first broke about the foiling of the terror plot in London, all liquids were banned from being taken onto planes via carry-on luggage. Over the last two weeks, however, TSA has refined some of the bans originally implemented. Some of the prohibited carry-on items include liquids, gels, lotions and other items of similar consistency. However, small doses of liquid prescription medications and baby formula are permitted along with up to 5 oz. of liquid or gel for low blood sugar treatment and up to 4 oz. of essential non-prescription liquid medications. While these items are permitted past the screening checkpoint and on board, travelers need to be aware that these items will still be subject to physical inspection. It is recommend that all travelers check the TSA website prior to traveling to read about any new prohibited carry-on items and if you are in doubt about a particular item, just pack it with your checked baggage. For additional information about items that are permitted and prohibited as carry on items, visit: http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/assistant/index.shtm. top
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| | Hurricane Ernesto Spawns Fraudsters | Much like we reported last year after Hurricane Katrina, this year’s hurricane season will cause damage to those regions in danger and will illicit relief and donations from contributors who want to help. Unfortunately, the situation represents an irresistible temptation to fraudsters who hope to cash in on part of the relief efforts.
By the time Hurricane Ernesto hit the Mid-Atlantic region, at least 21 web site names had been registered that were somehow related to Hurricane Ernesto. While some of them may be legitimate, most of them are likely to be attempts at fraud. Here are some tips that you can follow through the entire hurricane season:
- Donate to recognized charities you have given to before. Watch out for charities that have sprung up overnight. They may be well-meaning, but lack the infrastructure to provide assistance. And be wary of charities with names that sound like familiar, or nationally known organizations. Some phony charities use names that sound or look like those of respected, legitimate organizations.
- Give directly to the charity, not the solicitors for the charity. That's because solicitors take a portion of the proceeds to cover their costs, which leaves less for victim assistance.
- Do not give out personal or financial information - this includes your Social Security number or credit card and bank account numbers - to anyone who solicits a contribution from you. Scam artists use this information to commit fraud against you.
- Check out any charities before you donate. Contact the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance at www.give.org.
- Don't give or send cash. For security and tax record purposes, contribute by check or credit card. Write the official name of the charity on your check. You can contribute safely online through national charities like www.redcross.org/donate.
- Ask for identification if you're approached in person. Many states require paid fund-raisers to identify themselves as such and to name the charity for which they're soliciting. Obtained in part from the Federal Trade Commission (http://www.ftc.gov/).
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| Quote of the Month: "Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity."
-Unknown
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| | Cool Resource: Know What Time it is, Anywhere |  For those of us that do business internationally, it can sometimes be challenging to communicate with our clients or vendors abroad if we’re not sure what time it is. Those of us who have regular international conference calls probably have the relevant time zones memorized, but if someone in Japan (for example) urgently wants to speak, and you’re not sure whether you have to stay up late or get up early, here is a site that will tell you the exact current time, to the second, of any city or country, with daylight savings accounted for: http://www.timeanddate.com. Check it out.
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| | Google Gets Stronger With OCR | Google, continuing in its attempt to index and organize the globe’s information, has assisted Hewlett-Packard (HP) in fixing the bugs in Tesseract, a more than 20 year-old Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program that HP had shelved in 1995. HP made Tesseract open source (free for all) about two months ago, after Google had successfully completed its nearly two-year debugging project.
Ramifications? Tesseract was deemed to be one of the most prolific OCR programs prior to HP shelving it, and prior to HP deciding to get out of the OCR business. Google’s move is consistent with its goal of indexing every bit of documentation that the world has to offer, to include information that is only in a paper document. By digitizing (and allowing users to search) information that was previously only available by physically reading a document, Google should only widen its lead as the most robust search engine available.
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| | Contact Information | If you are interested in obtaining additional information about these articles or the services offered by Credential Check Corporation, please contact one of the following individuals:
Thank you! We'll see you next month!
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