Avoid hiring headaches

by James W. Bassett

“Four months after Joe was hired to work at Harmsway Distributors, we did a physical inventory of our warehouse. Our computers were telling us that certain merchandise items were supposed to be on our shelves, but the merchandise simply wasn’t there. I suspected employee theft and told all the employees there would be an investigation. Joe quit without notice the next day. He never even returned to pick up his last paycheck."

Sound familiar? Employee theft is one of many personnel problems that is easier to prevent than to solve. To prevent employee problems, you need a screening process that will identify problem employees before they go on your payroll. This process need not be complicated or expensive. Here are some suggestions.

Suggestion #1: Avoid crisis hiring
“I hired Joe when we were short-handed. I really needed someone so I took a chance…"

When you need someone real bad, odds are that you will hire someone real bad. There is a natural temptation to short-circuit the standard screening process and hire a replacement immediately. Applicants you would normally judge unacceptable suddenly seem very desirable when the need to hire a body, any body, becomes acute. To avoid crisis hiring, encourage applicants to submit employment applications even when you have no job openings. Keep their applications on file. These days, employees are more likely than ever to quit without notice. Having qualified candidates waiting in the wings helps you hire replacements quickly and make good hiring choices. Ask your best employees to refer their friends who are looking for work. Offer them small rewards for their referrals.

Suggestion #2: Avoid interviewing from resumes
“…and Joe’s resume really looked good…”

The applicant’s resume is her personal advertisement. Its purpose is to highlight her assets and hide her shortcomings. Most applicants don’t overtly lie on their resumes; they just omit negative information. Unsuccessful short-term jobs, reasons for leaving and dates of employment are items most frequently omitted from resumes. Interviewing an applicant from his resume can lead you to overvalue his assets and never see his liabilities.

Suggestion #3: Interview from completed employment applications
“…so I thought I could dispense with the employment application.”

A comprehensive employment application is the cornerstone of every successful pre-employment screening program. It will identify many undesirable applicants early in the selection process and costs next to nothing. A critical look at your company’s employment application may suggest ways that it can be improved. Applications of the one-page stationery store variety are too brief. They fail to elicit vital information that can be legally requested. Do not grant the applicant an interview until he fills out your company’s employment application legibly and completely. Omitting answers is one way applicants conceal negative information. Completing the employment application is your potential employee’s first job task. Never accept an incomplete or half-hearted effort. Have you ever had an applicant ask you if he could take his employment application home to fill it out? If so, he probably plans to have someone else fill it out for him because he cannot read.

Suggestion #4: Study the applicant’s employment history
“Later, I noticed that he left many of the work history questions blank."

The nitty-gritty of the employment application is the work history section. Recent jobs are the best predictors of future job performance and permanency. Your application should provide enough spaces to allow the applicant to list every job he has held for at least the past five years. His personal pattern of success or failure is often clearly displayed in his unabridged employment record. Application instructions should direct job seekers to list every job including part-time, second jobs and volunteer jobs. Beginning and ending dates of each job (month as well as year) are also necessary. Precise dates of employment expose gaps between jobs. What did the applicant do during these periods of unemployment? Attend school? Work a short-term job he was fired from? Make license plates for the state?

Suggestion #5: Ask to see the applicant’s driver’s license.
“I wish I’d asked him to show me some I.D.”

Checking I.D. quickly establishes the applicant’s identity and will often save you time. If the applicant does not have a driver’s license, he should be able to produce a valid I.D. If no driver’s license, how does he plan to get to work? Those who depend on others to take them to work frequently have problems getting to work on time. Is his driver’s license suspended? Why? Is the name on the license or I.D. the same as the name he entered on his application? Is his address the same? Does his picture resemble the person who sits before you now or does it look like someone else? Does he claim to have graduated from high school in 1996 when his driver’s license says he was born in 1981?

Suggestion #6: Check work references
“I was in a hurry, so I didn’t call any of his former employers.”

Requesting previous supervisors’ names and phone numbers makes reference checking easier. Former supervisors know the applicant far better than their personnel departments.  Former supervisors can often be coaxed into providing candid information about a former subordinate even in companies that have policies against releasing reference information. If you are confronted with a supervisor who tells you it is against company policy to answer questions about former employees, say, “Wow, he must have been a really bad employee!” If he was a decent employee, the former supervisor feels compelled to tell you so and will often blurt out, “No! No! He wasn’t bad at all!” If the employee was a bad employee, the supervisor will say nothing. Either way, you have your reference.

Suggestion #7: Ask about criminal convictions
“After he quit, I began to wonder if he had ever been convicted of theft.”

Ask the applicant, “If I could take a look at your criminal record, what would it show?” The applicant who has never been convicted of a criminal offense will tell you so without hesitation. The applicant who hesitates usually has something to hide. Job seekers who admit recent criminal convictions will be willing to discuss the details and should be given the opportunity to do so. If the applicant claims to have a clean record, you may ask him to get a copy of his record from the local police and bring it back to you. Offer to reimburse him for the fee.  The Freedom of Information Act gives us all the right to obtain copies of our criminal records. Applicants who have criminal records seldom return when sent to obtain copies of them.

Suggestion #9: Use a pre-employment honesty test
“ I think I’ll start giving an honesty test to my applicants from now on.”

The case for written honesty tests is strong. Research shows that honesty tests can drastically reduce employee theft. Honesty defined as the likelihood to steal can be predicted accurately by these inexpensive questionnaires. Pre-employment honesty tests can uncover applicants’ shortcomings in several important areas. Information about work history, substance abuse, work attitudes and customer service attitudes are also provided by many of these tests. A pre-employment honesty test will reduce the time it takes to hire a qualified applicant so he won’t accept another job first, an important advantage in times of full employment. These tests tactfully ask the tough but necessary questions that you may find difficult to ask in face-to-face interviews. These tests also help insure that no critical information areas are overlooked. The quality and content of pre-employment honesty tests vary widely. There are many good ones available including the author’s own Veracity Analysis Questionnaire.

James W. Bassett is the president of a firm that provides investigative questionnaires to businesses. He is the author of the V.A.Q honesty pre-employment test, The Shortage Questionnaire, The Specific Loss Questionnaire, and The Crime Questionnaire. You can reach him through his company's Web site at www.theftstopper.com or phone him at (513) 421-9604.

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