Dive Brief:
- A new survey by HireRight found that 85% of employers uncovered lies on job applicants’ resumes. More employers are finding lies than they did five years ago, when the rate was 66%, according to HireRight’s 10th annual Employment Screening Benchmark Report.
- The report also reveals that 48% of employers aren’t re-screening employees after they’re hired, only a 5% improvement over the figures reported five years ago. And among employers who re-screen, they do so only when employees are promoted or their positions change.
- This year, 78% of employers don’t plan to adjust their drug policies to include marijuana use, even though some states have legalized marijuana. Five years ago, 79% of employers didn’t have a marijuana policy and didn’t plan to have one.
Dive Insight:
A fair number of job applicants have always fudged facts on their resumes or said some truly ridiculous things. Employers should remain vigilant about reviewing resumes for lies and doing thorough background checks — but they must also ensure their background check policies are fairly applied across all applicants, or they could risk the ire of the EEOC.
Recent calls to "ban-the-box" (getting rid of the part of an application that has employees admit to having committed any felony crimes) have increased interest in background checks as a broad way to ensure hires are indeed who they claim to be. Concerns about racial discrimination in such checks have challenged employers, however, increased calls for fairness in the process.
A surprising finding in the report is that few employers have a formal global screening policy, even as the workforce becomes more international. Only 15% of organizations verify U.S.-based employees and 13% do global screening.
Another surprising revelation: Employers’ failure to include marijuana use in their drug policies or not having a marijuana policy at all given the attention this receives as the push to legalize pot spreads. But that may be starting to change, as employers begin to anticipate the changes that may come from a majority of states allowing some form of medical marijuana usage.
