Checking Up
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Are background checks necessary for IT employees? If you read the article, a simple check would have determined that one of their admins had a criminal record. He eventually introduced a logic bomb that crashed servers and lost some business. Fortunately he was caught and arrested.
I've always been a big believer in trust and in my judgement of a person. I go on gut instinct enough because it has worked well for me. I want to feel that the people I work with, I hire, or that hire me, are people that I want to be around, I like, and I trust. When I don't trust someone, we have a problem working together.
So I'm not sure about background checks. There are plenty of people who are capable and willing to damage systems without a record. I'd like to think I'd have a feeling about them after spending time with them that they'd do something like this. I suspect most of you know someone that you think might delete some data or cause some other problem if they were slighted.
On the other hand I know plenty of people with criminal records from immaturity or over-indulgence with adult beverages (or both), that have grown and are worth hiring and trusting. If I didn't know them personally, I might look at them different, which is how others probably see them.
So back to background checks? Would they have helped in this case? They had a sysadmin, with root access, that had drug charges and a tax violation from nearly 20 years ago and a burglary/assault charge from over 30. Does that change your decision to hire someone? I don't know. It's probably good information to have, but it could be explained. "I got drunk and stole a street sign" (burglary) is not the same as "I used to supplement my income by stealing monitors from a company".
And where does it stop? I'd argue someone with financial issues, deep in debt, gambling, etc. might be more susceptible to being a systems problem than someone who was arrested for behavior. Do we want to give credit reports to hiring managers? Do we trust them with this data? The latter might be a bigger problem than the former.
Having more information is usually better than having less. In the end, however, it still comes down to your judgement and a human making a decision, not some rule that says x, y, or z.
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I am not big on prying into people’s lives, but if I had that information about that guy, I doubt if I would want him around.
I would be most concerned about the aggravated assault conviction. A history of violence is not a good indicator for working well with people.
Also, the guy has a history of run-ins with the law over 4 decades that indicate long-term problems, not just youthful indiscretions.
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I am personally a bit sceptical about this because I realise that it is very difficult to judge someone upfront unless there is serious crime involved. For instance, aggravated assault as suggested above can be cause for serious concern. On the other hand, a divorce case leading to smelly criminal complaints may probably be the outcome of bitterness between warring spouses and need not mean that such individuals are prone to indulge in chronic criminal behaviour.
I have known instances of people being fired from previous positions because of misbehaviour (what actually transpired was employee gave as good as he got from his boss!) and who have gone on to do well elsewhere.
There are other obvious cases where the candidate has changed 10 jobs in five years all of these as full-time employee - that can throw up the question of his ability to hold down a job and stabilise.
At the end of the day though, I have relied on my instinct on how much importance to attach to such records
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I agree that a record establishes only that there might be some interesting questions to resolve. But what if it a conviction for violence came from a time when the person was suffering from depression and [literally] not really themselves? Maybe you can live with the single conviction but don't feel comfortable that they had an illness that might recur. This is awfully uncertain ground - when to disregard a past that could be anyone's and when to decide it still matters now. I suppose that's why we have the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act in the UK, so that convictions can be spent and don't have to be declared as a permanent blot on your life history. (I guess it's also why countries legislate against discrimination, to prevent primitive attitudes like "I won't employ a woman - she might get pregnant/want time off for kids' appointments...".)
But what has surprised me when I have been employed in that I have rarely been asked to prove my academic/skills record (it's all very civilised and courteous, but why should a prospective employer believe me without evidence?). And since before IT I was an adminstrative civil servant, it baffles me that a new IT worker gets domain admin and access to secure systems as they start, and no-one supervises or checks what they do, even if only to ensure compliance with in-house methods. Apart from spotting minor errors and discrepancies this would establish real skill levels, as well as reveal their true attitude to systems, working practices, management directives and so on. Past history apart, maybe the real question is "is this person ethical about their work".
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I've worked in the mortgage business for the last twenty years.
Each loan applicant is evaluted on their credit report, among other information, before a home loan is granted. This process is called "underwriting".
Underwriters have been intrusted to grant loans based on underwriting criteria. They can't grant loan based on gut feel. They have a fiduciary responsibility to ensuring that guidelines are followed.
Hiring someone for an IT position based on gut feel and then granting them admin access is irresponsible. It's your responsibility to protect the company's interests. It's your responsibility to do "due diligence" in researching a persons background.
You don't have to like it. You just have to do it.
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I spent 20 years in the U.S. military and had a high security clearance and from my experience background checks only tell what you've done, not what you are likely to do. Several FBI/CIA agents with top secret clearances have sold secrets to our enemies. And occassionally they get caught!
We recently had to fire an IT employee whose background check was clean. During his second week he told me that he had taken cables and network hardware from previous employers and tried to file a pay check request with his previous employer after he had work a week for us.
Background checks can be used to weed out the criminals but only the ones that have been caught.
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I would advocate that rigorous internal controls and appropriate systems monitoring would greatly reduce one's ability to engage in mischief so IT management here has to take some responsibility for what happened.
Would a background check prevented this? Unknown. Arrests or even a conviction in 1968 followed by 30 years of nothing on a criminal record would indicate to me someone who was staying away from trouble. A pattern of arrests in the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's would indicate to me someone who, at the least, has a great ability to find trouble or the wrong crowd. Having done prison volunteer work, I have heard more than one inmate invoke the 'bad company' explanation.
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"Background checks can be used to weed out the criminals but only the ones that have been caught."
i.e. the 'dumb' criminals.
In truth though, checks are a poor (close to useless) substitute for security and cross checking procedures.
From the article "that 30% of insiders who are caught launching an attack against their employers have arrest records ". What that tells us is that 70% of insiders caught HAD NO CRIMINAL RECORDS. One also should compare what percentage of good employees have had criminal records; this may prove to be even less of an indicator of reliability than is suggested.
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-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
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My brother-in-law manages a small office for a large Orthopedic/Prosthetic firm. When he was hired to run the office, about a year and a half ago, the office administrator was already on staff. For a whole year he tried to get her fired, knowing in his gut that she was a bad employee. Finally, after a year of down revenue, the company listened to him and fired her.
After about a week of going through the accounting books, they found that she had been manipulating insurance claims, taking cash from patients, etc. So far her embezzling has amounted to almost 100K, and they are still finding stuff.
My brother-in-law found out, after the fact, that this woman had a prior record of cashing bad checks, and had spent time in jail for the same. She was a good actor though, and until all of this broke, everyone thought my brother-in-law was being too harsh on her.
Are criminal background checks necessary? You bet, especially if the employee is going to be working with company funds in any way, shape or form.
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A background check is a MUST under all circumstances, no matter what job the employee is being considered for. A company must take reasonable precautions to insure the safety of the Business, its employees and the general public. There is no hard and fast rule that says any particular "bad" history is automatically disqualifying, that will depend on the job position and the "gut instinct" of the manager doing the hiring. I also believe that Credit Reports are a must; these show personal responsibility and help judge a person’s character. I also believe in forgiveness, second chances and most importantly allowing someone the chance to explain bad information. Everything has to be considered and weighed against the responsibilities of the position the person is being hired for. You don't hire a convicted pedophile to work in a day care center. But that type of conviction would not necessarily prevent him working in a bank, but again you would not allow him to be alone with any of the other employee's children on Family Day. I think Background and Credit Checks are no different than checking someone’s qualifications, experience and knowledge of the job position. It is just another aspect of responsible hiring practices.
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Pulling credit reports is or atleast recently was common practice during hiring, particularly if the employee is being bonded. (which in some companies is all employees)
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The "but don't feel comfortable that they had an illness that might recur" statement is one of the biggest problems with background checks. Once something is classified into a medical condition, all sorts of rules start popping up about how you can handle that person. If you asked those questions, and were told about a bout of clinical depression that is now under control, you open yourself up to a possible discrimination suit.
I say better to stay out of it, and make "ability to be bonded" part of the job requirements, and keep your nose out of your employee's personal life... it's safer all around. Let a 3rd party do the dirty work.
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"My brother-in-law found out, after the fact, that this woman had a prior record of cashing bad checks, and had spent time in jail for the same."
Given the nature of the position she was hired for, yes, a prior record for cashing bad checks should have been a red flag. On the other hand, if she had a prior record for speeding, would this have been sufficient reason for not having hired her in the first place? IMHO, not unless she was being hired for a position involving her driving skills. However, once the background (or credit) check comes into the picture, any information that is found becomes "relevant" whether it is ancient history and not related to the job description or recent and directly related to the job description.
Perhaps what is needed is an independent review of the credit or background check based upon criteria provided by the company (e.g. if the company is hiring an office administrator or a cashier, information related to high debt or offenses associated with embezzlement or bad checks would be relevant but speeding would not). This might be something along the lines of an independent "audit" . . . the credit/background data is reviewed but only that portion that is relevant to the position is noted/reported.
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You should probably check, but you need to give the person a chance to explain. I have horrible credit, but I've got a good reason why, and my credit report doesn't make it clear that I've been paying people off and getting out of the hole. I was in jail for a while for theft when I was 18, but I'm 36 now and I don't steal smokes from the store anymore... so yeah, it's important to explain. I wasn't stealing things to supplement my income, I was just a screwed-up kid with a nicotine habit, and I'm twice the age I was then, so obviously I've changed.
I believe in reference checks. I like to talk to human beings... computers records don't give the whole story. We have a guy working here now, who I'm sure is a rapist, but nobody checked his references. All the girls are just 'creeped-out' by him, and there is a suspicious resignation from a CEO position in his past. He also resigned from a political office at the same time. You don't go from being a CEO to being a sales guy, unless something happened. We are very suspicious. There could be an explanation (I can think of a few good ones), but not knowing is more dangerous than knowing.
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"Not knowing is more dangerous than knowing." - There's so much truth in that.
Where I am now, I had a background check and a drug test before I could get in. Where I'm going, I don't know what kind of checks they are doing, but I don't care what they check on - I have nothing to hide. I've seen companies do background checks, credit checks, and even driving record checks. If I were on the other end and saw the results from these checks, I'd definitely want to know what happened if someone had a record, especially if it were related to their job.
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