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Background Checks

Employers not liable for employee crime outside work

12/01/2007

California employers can rest easy—they aren’t liable for criminal acts their employees may undertake outside the workplace or their job responsibilities. That’s true even if the employee uses work-related materials to commit the crime, and the employer missed important clues in a background check …

Should your background checks include sex offender registries?

11/13/2007

The Internet lets employers can find out much more about prospective employees than they could just a few years ago. One sort of web site of interest to employers doing background checks: the government’s sex offender registries. Follow these guidelines to use that information responsibly—and legally.

Checklist: Top 9 Reference-Checking Questions

11/07/2007
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On applications, arrests off limits; convictions fair game—With limits

11/01/2007

Q. Our employment application asks, “Have you ever been arrested? If so, list the nature of the arrest.” Is this legal? …

‘Name, rank and serial number’ still best bet for references

11/01/2007

The old adage “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” seems perfectly suited to employer-supplied references. If an employee is fired or quits in lieu of being fired, it’s a safe bet she will look for another job. It’s also a safe bet that her prospective employer will want to know what type of employee it may be getting. Don’t be in a rush to provide more than basic information for any former employee …

Best practices: conducting background checks on new hires

11/01/2007

No matter the size of your operation, hiring and retaining qualified and honest employees is critical. A recent study found that 36.5% of employment verifications revealed inconsistencies and 14% provided false or inconsistent information about education. That means every employer has a good reason to undertake background checks of all potential employees before making hiring decisions, particularly for positions involving confidential or sensitive information …

The marijuana exception to queries about criminal convictions

11/01/2007

Q. I know that an employer cannot ask a job applicant about arrests. Are there any limitations on my right to inquire about convictions? …

State’s Attorney’s job fair recruits minority lawyers

10/01/2007

Responding to criticism that the Illinois State’s Attorney’s Office lacks prosecutors of color, the agency recently held a “Minority Job Fair for Licensed Attorneys.” Former Illinois Appellate Court Justice R. Eugene Pincham alleged in an interview that the state’s attorney’s office had only 40 minority prosecutors out of 950 …

Refusing to hire former criminals: Is it race discrimination?

10/01/2007

Does your organization have a blanket policy of refusing to hire any applicant with a criminal record? If so, make sure you can explain exactly why. A recent Pennsylvania court ruling shows that across-the-board “no ex-cons” policies can quickly run into legal trouble unless you can prove the restriction for a specific position was “job-related and consistent with business necessity” …

Postal career on hold as man can’t get arrest record expunged

10/01/2007

A Pennsylvania man has lost a lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in which he sought to have the state erase his arrest record. He claimed that the arrest never resulted in a conviction because he was found “not guilty by reason of insanity,” and that the arrest record was keeping him from getting a job at the U.S. Postal Service …