As a growing company, we naturally needed more staff to service our clients.
Like many companies do, we advertised a job opening and received a number of applications.
We reviewed them, conducted interviews, and found an applicant with a stellar work history and great references. She interviewed very well, did not have a criminal record according to the application she completed, and even boasted of being married to a law enforcement officer.
We decided to move her forward in the hiring process.
Before you read on, remember: we are a background screening company.
As we conducted our background check, a number of red flags popped up.
Although she presumably provided her married name on the application, we found several criminal records under her maiden name. As we do with all criminal records, we confirmed that our applicant had several felony convictions including grand theft, fraud, identity theft, and forgery.
Needless to say, we were quite stunned by what we learned – so much so that I called the applicant to discuss our findings.
The applicant initially denied being a convicted felon until I told her I was looking at her Department of Corrections photograph. Her tone immediately changed! She suddenly stopped being the confident, bubbly, outgoing person we interviewed, and she became quite insolent.
I asked her what made her think she could conceal her criminal record. In a cold and distant tone of voice, she said, “I had a 50/50 chance of getting away with it!”
This leads me to believe she had gotten away with it before.
Lesson learned – If you don’t conduct employee background screenings, this could happen to you. It almost happened to eGuarded!
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