{"id":139,"date":"2008-03-07T16:23:42","date_gmt":"2008-03-07T16:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sentrylink.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/07\/background-checks-and-more-in-hiring\/"},"modified":"2021-06-29T12:40:41","modified_gmt":"2021-06-29T16:40:41","slug":"background-checks-and-more-in-hiring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sentrylink.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/07\/background-checks-and-more-in-hiring\/","title":{"rendered":"Background checks and more in hiring"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Advance, a web site for health information professionals, asks: &#8220;What&#8217;s more expensive than the time and money invested in hiring and training a new employee?&#8221; Their answer: &#8220;Doing it again, when a new hire exits unexpectedly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Then they lay out <a href=\"http:\/\/health-information.advanceweb.com\/editorial\/content\/editorial.aspx?cc=106516\">several strategies, including background checks, for doing a better job of hiring<\/a>. The article is aimed at people who hire for positions called &#8220;medical coders.&#8221; If that&#8217;s not you, skip the article and read what follows. Here are a few highlights, along with my comments.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Know exactly what you need.&#8221; Far too few companies do this. I&#8217;m not taking about the job title or &#8220;education requirements.&#8221; Think about what the person will actually do and who they will work with. Then draw up a profile of an ideal candidate. Then you can put in the educational or experience requirements that relate directly to the job.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Weigh references \u2013 but not heavily.&#8221;  I love the phrasing of this recommendation because it should remind you that it&#8217;s getting tougher and tougher to get anything except verification of dates of employment out of previous employers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Test your applicant&#8217;s knowledge.&#8221; Don&#8217;t just go by the resume or application. Test the applicant&#8217;s assertion that he or she can perform a specific task or is familiar with a particular process or software. Use questions about the process or procedures. Use actual performance tests.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Perform a background check.&#8221; The author recommends both a criminal background check and a pre-employment credit check. So do I.<\/p>\n<p>Remember that the people you hire are your business. They do the work. They deal with your customers and co-workers. You owe it to them and to yourself to do a good, thoughtful, and thorough job of hiring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advance, a web site for health information professionals, asks: &#8220;What&#8217;s more expensive than the time and money invested in hiring and training a new employee?&#8221; Their answer: &#8220;Doing it again, when a new hire exits unexpectedly.&#8221; Then they lay out several strategies, including background checks, for doing a better job of hiring. The article is aimed at people who hire for positions called &#8220;medical coders.&#8221; If that&#8217;s not you, skip the article and read what follows. Here are a few highlights, along with my comments. &#8220;Know exactly what you need.&#8221; Far too few companies do this. I&#8217;m not taking about the job title or &#8220;education requirements.&#8221; Think about what the person will actually do and who they will work with. Then draw up a profile of an ideal candidate. Then you can put in the educational or experience requirements that relate directly to the job. &#8220;Weigh references \u2013 but not heavily.&#8221; I love the phrasing of this recommendation because it should remind you that it&#8217;s getting tougher and tougher to get anything except verification of dates of employment out of previous employers. &#8220;Test your applicant&#8217;s knowledge.&#8221; Don&#8217;t just go by the resume or application. Test the applicant&#8217;s assertion that he  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background-checks","category-employment-screening"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sentrylink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sentrylink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sentrylink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sentrylink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sentrylink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sentrylink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209,"href":"https:\/\/www.sentrylink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sentrylink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sentrylink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sentrylink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}