Hire Image LLC

In our technologically advanced world, it is not surprising that employers take advantage of social media to recruit and hire potential employees. Many employers have turned to social media as a way to screen and monitor the behavior of both potential and current employees. From gaining insight into the type of person a candidate is, to determining if they present themselves in a professional manner, employers can gauge if the candidate is a good fit for the company at  Hire Image . But just how practical and useful is this information, and what are the legal implications? One practical application for using social media is for recruiting. A 2011 study done by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that 76% of companies use or plan on using social media sites for recruiting. Many individuals seeking employment use social media platforms to make themselves known to employers, and also to research potential employers. When social media is used in this way, i...

A federal appeals court upheld the dismissal of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s lawsuit against Kaplan Higher Education Corporation. The lawsuit between the EEOC and Kaplan has been lengthy and drawn out. In December 2010, the EEOC sued Kaplan in federal district court in Ohio, claiming that Kaplan’s use of pre-employment credit checks was in violation of Title VII, and had a disparate impact on protected class members. The EEOC alleged that Kaplan’s use of credit checks caused it to screen out more African-American applicants than white applicants. In November 2012, Kaplan and the EEOC both filed separate motions for judgment before trial. Kaplan’s motions argued that the EEOC had failed to identify a particular employment practice, that their expert opinion was inadmissible, and that Kaplan’s use of credit history information was job related and consistent with business necessity. The EEOC’s motion argued that the court should reject Kaplan’s defense that its u...

Drugs and alcohol in the workplace can be challenging to handle. They have a significant impact on business and on your bottom line. According to the US Department of Labor, alcohol and drug use costs American businesses roughly $81 billion in lost productivity per year due to premature death and $44 billion due to illness. According to  Hire Image  report, Approximately 86% of these cases are attributed to alcohol. Employers need to do what they can to keep drugs and alcohol use out of their workforce. Having a formal policy and following drug screening procedures are essential in protecting your workplace. A few steps to follow when instituting a drug-free workplace policy: • Your drug-free workplace policy should clearly stipulate what the penalties for policy violations will be. If your policy includes a drug-testing program, spell out exactly who will be tested, when they will be tested, and what will happen to employees who test positive. • Every one of your ...

In the past year, we have seen a large increase in the number of FCRA-based class-action lawsuits. A number of widely known companies such as Domino’s, K-Mart, ClosetMaid, Disney, CVS, and Whole Foods have been hit with lawsuits claiming they did not meet their requirements under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The three main areas of FCRA being placed under scrutiny are the employers’ neglect in properly providing the proper FCRA Summary of Rights, utilizing a compliant Disclosure and Authorization forms, and the use (or neglected use) of Pre-Adverse and Adverse Action letters. Here is information at  Hire Image   website on how to stay in compliance with FCRA requirements, and some highlights of cases where non-compliance is alleged. •  The FCRA summary of rights must be provided to the applicant before performing a background check and also if/when a Pre-Adverse action letter is sent to the applicant.  In order to stay in compliance with the FCRA, thi...

Whether you own a house or rent a living space, it’s inevitable that you will have an installation, handyman, or repair contractor come into your home. From cable TV, computer wiring, and phone installation to heating or plumbing service personnel, these people need access to the interior of your home in order to get the job done. Most consumers do not fear for their personal safety and don’t give this situation a second thought. Allowing strangers into your home should, however, because for concern, for good reason.  Hire Image  Company to provide best home workers with background checking. People have been robbed, assaulted, even murdered at the hands of in-home workers. In February 2001, Sue Weaver hired a well-known department store service to clean the air ducts in her Florida home. Two men were subcontracted by the store to perform the cleaning; both were ex-cons with known criminal backgrounds. One of the men returned  six months later  to rap...

Can you imagine the person hired to take care of your loved ones stealing their hard-earned money, personal information, or committing fraud in their name? Neither could Leo Foster from Vicksburg, Miss. whose elderly mother was recently a victim of such a crime – a recent segment of the Rossen Report tells her story. Similar crimes happen all the time in places perceived to be safe – hospitals, nursing homes, and even in your own home. Criminals, including identity thieves, target the vulnerable populations such as the elderly, children and the sick.  Hire Image  teamwork on how we protect you on these type of crimes. Don’t assume thorough criminal background searches are taking place to prevent these crimes. Some states, like Mississippi, don’t have laws requiring a criminal background check for administrative staffers in facilities with vulnerable populations. Many other states that have requirements for background checks limit the search to just their s...

U.S. government shutdown has affected many federal agencies, some of which professional background screeners rely on to conduct searches.  With the recent shutdown, several federal websites have been shuttered, and access to certain information suspended.  Hire image  to provide all information regarding government updates. Why shut down a website when it could still be operable for consumers or anyone else to obtain information?  It’s not like a website needs a federal employee to operate it each day.  For example, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) website is completely shut down.  Since employment background checks are considered “consumer reports,” the FTC is the agency that enforces the Fair Credit Reporting Act that regulates all consumer reports.  As a consumer reporting agency,  Hire Image  must comply with the FCRA.  In my opinion, the site could remain open for quick reference or information. In addition to the FTC...

The Boston School Department deserves praise for putting the safety of its students first and foremost. Recently while conducting system-wide background checks of all of its 9,000 employees at  Hire Image  Companies, the Department identified 14 employees with criminal charges and either fired or placed them on administrative leave. Criminal records ranged from possession of drugs to rape charges. These were not necessarily convictions, but the Department has a policy proposal on the table for school officials to consider non-convictions in making employment decisions. We recently had a client in who was recruiting for a janitorial position at a school. Had the focus been solely on convictions, the person who was “only” arrested 8 times for child molestation – not “convicted” – would have gotten the job to work in a school. Why hadn’t the person been found guilty or convicted, you’re wondering? After ordering the police report and full court records, it turned o...

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) held a briefing on December 2012 to assess the impact of criminal background checks and the EEOC’s guidance on the consideration of arrest and conviction records in enforcement decisions under Title VII and its impact on the employment of black and Hispanic workers.  Hire Image , along with the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) and many other like-minded organizations, signed a letter to the commission to provide insight into the defects of the Guidance – defects that discourage responsible use of criminal background checks. The letter was quite lengthy but highlighted the lack of transparency in issuing the guidance as well as the failure to weigh the important societal interests served by criminal background checks. The USCCR received so many letters that they have been unable to post them online.  We have reproduced the letter here. Peter Kirsanow, a member of the US Commission on Civil Rig...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation keeps a listing of identifying information taken from fingerprints submitted voluntarily by various criminal justice agencies in connection with arrests, or relating to naturalization or military service. Many employers are under the impression that this FBI identification database is the “gold standard” in background screening. In reality, the background screening community considers the FBI’s database as a tool to be used but not reliable enough as a single source for a background check. This is because the FBI database is simply not a thorough-enough resource for background screening. Having been arrested and fingerprinted may not help your job candidate land a job, but if such experiences did not result in a criminal conviction, such critical disposition information is likely to be missing from a person’s “rap sheet.”  Thus, relying on the FBI database alone doesn’t paint the whole picture. According to a 2006 Department of Justice (DOJ...

This morning, The Today Show ran a Rossen Report segment about how background screening companies have made reporting mistakes that caused candidates to, unfortunately, lose out on job opportunities. Specifically, the report followed several job seekers who were mistaken for criminals with the same or similar names, thus ruining their chances of getting hired.  Hire Image  Company mostly hire those employees whose background is good. Contrary to popular belief, there are no foolproof background searches or “national database” searches that cover the entire country. As a matter of fact, many states don’t submit criminal records to national databases and those that do only submit incarceration records. With the absence of a truly national database, the best search option available is hands-on research at the primary source: the county courthouses. However, with over 3,000 counties throughout the U.S. and over 10,000 courthouses housing criminal records, it would be an onerou...