“How Can I Utilize The MA CORI Search?” with Phil Sharkey of The Hire Authority

Jeffrey (1s):
Welcome back to Radio Entrepreneurs. My name is Jeffrey Davis, and again, we consistently stream stories of entrepreneurship and business and how people are dealing with the economy. You know, every week we like to call in the higher authority sheriffs, Sharky to tell us what’s going on with personnel, all the problems people make, you know, so many projects that I deal with as a management consultant could be adverted. If people properly screen their employees and their recruits, even when you’re promoting people from within, maybe you should do a little background check because some of these people that you thought, you know, you really don’t know more common than you realize. So Welcome back. Fill.

Phil (40s):
Thank you, Jeff. I appreciate it. The highlight of my week when, when we get to chat and again, I, I believe so strongly on the, and it’s something I’ve been doing with mountain company now for 25 years, I’ve been 30 years in, in the industry and the numbers are trending upward regarding falsification and dangerous people. And we’re not spying. We’re not going into people’s trash for just asking people to be honest and extend that hand to, to shake you and meet you and apply for your job and saying, Hey Jeff, I’m an honest person. And I want to work hard compared to what we see where it’s, Hey, Jeff online and see I’m lying right now. So when you trust me, when you put me on the spot, when I have to make that crucial decision, I’ve already shown you that if I, I must lie, I will lie and I can’t be trusted.

Phil (1m 23s):
And that, that, that’s something you just can’t have in your, in your businesses

Jeffrey (1m 28s):
When people are looking for a paycheck and they can be quite desperate for a paycheck. I have learned that they would say just about anything they thought they could get away with.

Phil (1m 37s):
Is that the whole thing that any successful business person will tell you, it’s all about being proactive in all your decisions and not reactive. And if you can anticipate putting in a good staff in place that wants to work hard and work together with you compared to people who just don’t want to fly, right. And just want to go the other way. And that’s what we, we surface. It’s not just the people with criminal records, but speaking of criminal records, that is what I wanted to talk to you about today regarding the Massachusetts Cory search. It’s a search that many people know, many people have heard, but not everyone is sure exactly what that entails and what goes into a Cory search and, and how to go about it. And what might surface on you. It stands for criminal offender record information.

Phil (2m 19s):
It’s just exclusive to Massachusetts. I have so many people that’ll first call me and tell me, you know, give me a Cory in Rhode Island, or I need a Cory in California. It’s just our state government’s term. It’s only Massachusetts and other states to not use that term. It’s not used anywhere else. Basically. It’s just a statewide criminal check in Rhode Island or New York or Florida, not Cory. That’s something Massachusetts in the vein of making money based, set up a system where they charge either myself or our clients, an a, an a fee to do the, the Massachusetts statewide check. So that’s what it stands for. That’s what it is. One thing I wanna point out about the Cory, Jeff is very important.

Phil (2m 60s):
Everyone thinks it’s the best search of all time for Massachusetts. It’s the best search in Massachusetts, but it has quite a bit of a flaws to it. I would say, as an investigator, if I was doing a background check for you and an employee, the problem with the quarries is it’s pending and conviction cases. Only so many times in my industry, we’ll have someone with four or five assault and batteries, all dismissed. Cause that’s usually a case where the other party has to show up to, to testify and they get a scare, they get afraid and they don’t. So that Cory would come back clear to me, that’s a major flaw that that arrests aren’t listed on the Cory search. So I tell my clients right off the bat, very important, understand pending and convictions only.

Phil (3m 42s):
So someone who’s been arrested and found not guilty or dismissed the that’ll come back as clear again. That changed when I first used to do Cory, they had arrest on there, but when Deval Patrick was governor in the vein of not to get political, but in the vein of, I think protecting the people who have been arrested and not being able to get jobs, they excluded the Cory to have convictions and pending cases only so well, when I do a check in Massachusetts, I suggest to my client, we do the Corey, but then also let me check the county criminal court, which does list arrest. I just had one recently where the Cory was clear, but the person had four arrests out of Brockton district court while were dismissed because they were assault batteries again, and drug possessions.

Phil (4m 30s):
I still think an employer needs to know that. And again, I know here’s where we get into. I get a lot of pushback from people regarding the big brother stance, et cetera. I, I disagree Jeff. I, I feel that it’s information and that gives you the best decision available. And I also believe that a person should own it. And if they’ve been arrested four times for assault and battery, then that’s the fact and the not been convicted, that’s fine. But I like to get that information from my clients because you sound like you may have a person who could be violent and you need to know about that. So that’s the flaw of the Cory. Again, I need people to understand that it’s only mass <em></em> and that it’s only convictions and open cases only, and also no sealed cases or people have their record expunged that won’t surface.

Phil (5m 13s):
So it’s very much in the vein of protecting the individual. There’ll be a Massachusetts where an individual states strong position and they do want to protect the individual. So it is the best search you can have. But I think there’s quite a few flaws there as far as if you’ve ever had one done and anyone who’s done one for maybe coaching youth sports, it’s a different release page assign. It’s a two page release and Jeff, they will require that they see some type of ID. So if I was checking yourself for Corey, I need to see your life license or some form of ID when you sign it. So that know that the Cori check I’m doing is on you. And I’ve seen identification to prove that. So I do see the flaws in it, but also it is the best check in Massachusetts.

Phil (5m 57s):
It’s the entire state something people may or not know, it’s 10 years search for felonies, and it’s a five-year search for misdemeanors. So if you’ve had a misdemeanor 6, 7, 8 years ago, your core, you should come back clear. If you’ve got a felony more than 10 years ago, it should come back clear. I also suggest to people to know their own business and you can conduct a Cory on yourself. So many people have had issues, or if you had your record expunged, I suggest to them to reach out to the Massachusetts court board and do one on yourself. You should never, I should never be able to know more about you than you. So these people also need to know where the stand that they did have some type of arrest trouble in the past.

Phil (6m 37s):
And they have some they’re unsure that it’s ambiguous situation is to go check your own. Okay?

Jeffrey (6m 43s):
No, I think you brought up an important point because let’s assume that people make mistakes in life and they were formed. Sure. You can’t assume that everyone who does something wrong is always going to do something wrong. And you said, go check your own Cory and clean out director. And I think that’s an important thing to do over time. And I think a lot of people don’t think about that. They just think of the fact that all my records, you know, I’m fine. I’m living as a free citizen again. But if you’re keeping that track record after you’ve created a track record of success, why not clean it up?

Phil (7m 14s):
It’s true. I can’t say the number of times where I’ve spoken to the applicant and they’re shocked unless they’re play acting to me. They’re like, I thought that was expunged. I went down and my attorney had that stricken from the record. And I tell them, you know, we do great work here, but I’m not a magic man. I’m only an information retriever. And if I was able to get it, then no, it’s not expunged. You know, there’s no, I’m not making any special calls to the governor or the state police office. If it’s there and I saw it, then it’s, you need to check into it. And many times they’ve got the shock response that that’s something went wrong, but don’t trust. You know, that things are gone, searching out yourself, especially as it’s not difficult to do. You just have to go onto the mass website and you have to sign it to be approved, to be Cory.

Phil (7m 59s):
That’s something that changed 200 Deval Patrick’s administration. I used to be able to do the Cori check for any client. Now since about, I think it was 2010, they changed the rules where the client has to be Cory approved. So if I was doing one for your company, first, your company needs to gain Cory approval. Then I can do the search for you. It’s not difficult to do you just go onto the website and get approved within usually one business day. So best search a Massachusetts. But I get people all the time who say, well, something happened in Rhode Island. I’m like, well, then we need to do a Rhode Island statewide criminal check. It’s only, only in Massachusetts that the Cori check is, is, is applicable.

Jeffrey (8m 37s):
Shotgun, sheriff Sharkey. How about, are you going to throw a twister at me before we go?

Phil (8m 45s):
I do. I got a big name for you enough with these small potatoes, let’s go to Yahoo. And we all know that Yahoo. And this was the CEO, Scott Thompson, CEO of Yahoo on his resume. He claimed degrees in accounting, as well as computer science from Stonehill college, right around the corner here from my offices, a fine institution. He was also the former president of PayPal and he was CEO of Yahoo in January, 2012. So this does go back a little bit, but a quick check of his academic records. Quick check. Jeff took five minutes show that he had a degree in accounting. None in computers took no computer courses, no degree in computers, nothing in computers at all, a high ranking Yahoo shareholder commented that this undermined his credibility as a technology expert and reflects poorly on his character of our CEO at Yahoo.

Phil (9m 33s):
So big time company as well, huge, huge black guy to their branding and all of our simple lie. That seemed to be quite unnecessary. So

Jeffrey (9m 42s):
It seems very appropriate. That he’d be that they would hire a Yahoo.

Phil (9m 49s):
Absolutely. My friends.

Jeffrey (9m 50s):
So sheriff Sharkey, somebody wants to be a little bit smart, not get themselves into a problem and not have to hire lawyers and management consultants save themselves as a problem. A little, little sheriff Sharky. Check-out how do people find you

Phil (10m 5s):
Right on the web@higheroff.com? That’s H I R E a U T h.com. You can call and get a person at 5 0 8 2 3 0 5 9 0 1. You can email me@psharkeyathigherauth.com and you’ll get a response immediately.

Jeffrey (10m 20s):
Wonderful and remind everybody, this is Radio Entrepreneurs and every single week on Radio Entrepreneurs, you can find sheriff Sharky right here, helping you to build your business. This is we’re going to take a break and remind everybody, this is Radio Entrepreneurs.