“What Range Of Background Check Options Are Available?” with Phil Sharkey of The Hire Authority

Nathan (0s):
Welcome back Radio Entrepreneurs, listeners, and fans. I’m producer Nathan Gobes, filling in once again for Jeffrey Davis this morning, I’m excited to have Phil Sharkey of the Hire Authority here with me. Welcome Phil.

Phil (13s):
Thank you, Nathan is great to be on with you here at Radio Entrepreneurs. I look forward to our segment today.

Nathan (18s):
Yeah, me as well. This is another Sharkey report was sheriff Sharkey. So Phil, I understand you wanted to talk about what does a background check include? There’s more than just the simple pieces that a lot of people expect. This may have been a subject that’s been mentioned before on our channel, but thought it’d be good to dive into it. Give us the, the in-depth discussion of what does come with a background check.

Phil (45s):
Yeah. Thank you, Nathan. Cause often get that. The first thing I got from someone, I just had it the other day. They’ll say, give, I need a BCI. What is a BCI I needed BCI. And what is that? And it stands for a background criminal investigation. So that’s one aspect of a full background. We conduct our strength is basically the full background package, but we do things from just the BCI, just criminal, just one item all the way up to our full backgrounds. But I think I get a lot of, a lot of questions about what does that entail and, and quickly I want to go through it with you today. So you’re your listeners and people have that question will get that answer. Like what does a background check consist of and, and like to go over with you if we, if, if you agree

Nathan (1m 23s):
Awesome. Yeah. Fire away.

Phil (1m 25s):
All right, Nathan, the first thing we check is what’s called the verification of identity, the social security number trace. So basically any screening company and we’re a member of the PBS say the professional background screening association for, for your guests. And there, our, our listeners, every screening company you choose should be a member of that organization. The first step is a social check. So you take the applicant’s social and you run it through these databases. We have, it gives us a couple of viable information. One is it verifies the social, as you can imagine today, I just saw on the news last night that people are flooding in through the Texas border. There’s so many people in the country that are not documented and as an employer, not getting into that argument, but it’s key to know that you have personal to viable social security number so that you can pay them legally confirmed that for us.

Phil (2m 15s):
The second thing we get Nathan is address history crucial for me to where we do run the criminal check. Most times when we get criminals records, it’s not where they live. It’s where they used to live and people will tell me, well, I’ll just ask them. And first criminals and dishonest people are not going to tell you that they lived in Connecticut prior over in Providence or in California. This check that we do gives us their full address history, which gives us the tools to run the criminal and the proper areas. So very important check for us. And that’s key when we do get a lot of false vacation in that area. So that’s the first step. The next thing is, as you assume, as educational verification, whether it’s yourself or any hire, we confirm their claim of educational history as an investigator.

Phil (2m 60s):
I’m not so interested in the actual level. You may be as the employer, you at regular entrepreneurs may require a degree for the position for me, it’s the honesty. They’re shaking your hand saying, hi, Nathan, nice to meet you. I’m lying to you right here where many people do falsify or I’m honest. So I don’t care if it’s postgraduate, if it’s high school, if it’s a master’s degree, PhD, bachelor’s, it’s the claim for us. And it gives a big opportunity for someone to be honest. So all the people out there applying for work, be honest, cause that’s where many people fall down right there in the educational claim. So that’s a big part of the full background check employment is a big part of what we do. We do a five-year history or a 10 year history.

Phil (3m 40s):
And our employment consists of speaking to the human resources department to get exact dates of employment, position reason for leaving rehire status, as much as they will allow, but also those supervisors, what did they do? How did they do it? Why did they leave? These are the people that would know the applicant, human resources often does not in the large companies. And just quickly as the final, the criminal record. We talked about that with the social that we run, the criminal and their current address and all former addresses. Again, this is where we see a lot of issues. People have hide their address history and we get criminal records. We also do driving record checks, which a lot of people shrug and say, it’s not a drunk driving position, but Nathan, that’s very important to us because we get the whole country covered in a driving record.

Phil (4m 28s):
And we do get about 10% back of our backgrounds that show no license, currently a bad driving history, a huge number. So even if it’s not a driving position that someone’s working for your company and we do the background and find out that they’re driving with a suspended license for the last year probably gives you a good indicator as to what’s going on there with the person. And then we also do a sex offender search. And of course that’s very, very important. We do local and national. So that’s the full background check in a nutshell.

Nathan (4m 58s):
Well, thank you, Phil. And I know you said at the beginning that you guys offer everything from the base level of, of what you’ve mentioned all the way to the full range. Are there options for obviously it’s recommended that business owners do engage in that, in that full range search that full background check so they can have the full picture on the employee they’re bringing in, but are there options, you know, at, at several different levels there,

Phil (5m 28s):
There sure are lights. That’s the full background that what I would recommend. And that’s where we see 30% falsified, some part of that background, but to be flexible and adaptable to some clients, we do just a criminal check. As I mentioned, some will have just a sex offender all the way up to what I mentioned and even additional there’s, some clients need a credit financial history on the person. If it’s in an accounting position or CFO, some clients will call these government compliance searches, which is a, a group of searches, which list individuals that are on a no fly list or have, have contract problems with the government all the way up to additional searches. So it can be Ella cart right up to the full background check, which gives everyone the option to best suit their finances. Some clients want to spend less money and they can work to have a lesser package.

Nathan (6m 13s):
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. And you know, of course, as you mentioned earlier, you know, you’re not making any dissertation on whether or not the employer should hire, you know, somebody who’s, let’s say undocumented or, or, you know, doesn’t have a driver’s license because of X and Y or these things, your just providing the information. And I think I agree that it’s important that the employer have this information so they can make the judgment versus just not knowing.

Phil (6m 41s):
That’s a great point, Nathan. We are what we call the fact-finders, you know, we’re, we’re working for our client and we acquire the information. They always make the decision. Usually I don’t even know what happens to the applicant, which is the best we give them the information on occasion. We’re here, we’re available to go over information and give our opinion as to is that really negative. And again, we all have different shades of gray. You know, it could be a criminal record that someone might think is gasoline and someone else might think like, well, they were a young kid and you can kick that around, but the client always makes the decision. We’re just here to aid them.

Nathan (7m 15s):
Yeah, yeah. Provide them with things to consider during their application process. I think, you know, maybe a lot of employers are feeling like, oh, this is just something that’s keeping them from bringing an employee in. But I think they, they may be disk discounting the fact that this can be what helps them decide between one employer or another, you know, there may be candidates of similar, similar strength based on their resume and other things and their experience, et cetera. But you know, when one has a sketchy history so to speak and the other does not that that can be important information.

Phil (7m 51s):
Yeah. We haven’t been tell the client, it’s not always negative sometimes as you said, it’s down to two people and you just want to know when it’s so valuable to us in this hiring environment that you can make the right choice. It just gives you information and knowledge gives you more power. And this gives you sort of the information to make the best choice for, for your company.

Nathan (8m 8s):
Yeah. That’s what it’s all about making the best choices for your company so that you can make sure that who you’re hiring is going to, it’s going to be somebody that, that you want on the team. You know, I think obviously, you know, it’s important to fill gaps in your team, fill, fill those roles, but you know, how, how difficult is it to go through the searching for candidates process, bringing them on board, training them, you know, bringing them up to speed six and then six, 12 months later when they’re finally moving that you find out there’s some issue, like for example, you mentioned a, if they’re in a CFO or accounting position and they, they have a bad credit history and it turns out they’re, they’re actually just not good with money, even though that’s what they do, you know, it’s so to restart terrible.

Phil (8m 56s):
Yeah. So Nathan, you know, we always say, be proactive, be productivity. There’s going to be a problem. Find out about it beforehand. And I know as you mentioned, people are doing so much, they were understaffed and overstressed. And one of our biggest selling points is our ease of service. Just get us the authorization form, which is required. You don’t have any more work to do. And in three business days, we’ll have the report back to you and then you can make your best decision Luminate in the back and forth for clients would find very helpful for them.

Nathan (9m 23s):
Yeah, that’s excellent. And, and the, the three business days you mentioned, does that include whether or not they’re going for the full, complete background and, you know, including some of those extra things.

Phil (9m 33s):
Absolutely. Absolutely three days, worst case scenario. Even if you have the, the, the biggest package we offer in three days, you’ll get your, your responses to, you know, what the background consists of. So a very tech timeliness is almost as important as the thoroughness of the report.

Nathan (9m 48s):
That’s great. That’s great. Obviously three days is, is nothing compared to, like we said, you know, it can be six months to a year of time or, or profit loss. If you want to think about it that way, if you can, by bringing on the wrong hire, I know we have done segments based on the average cost of a bad hire. And each of these pieces, we’ve mentioned, Phil, you’ve been on to talk about, you know, a breakdown of each of those individual pieces on our channel.

Phil (10m 16s):
Absolutely. And again, it’s money well spent. Right. You know, we’re, you’re not going to lose time. You’re not going to lose an applicant over a three-day period. We’ll get it done for you. And the money you could save, whether you’re a small, medium or large company is substantial, if it’s the wrong person.

Nathan (10m 32s):
Right. Right. Well, thank you Phil, for joining today. Obviously if listeners or viewers want to find out more, you know, they can, they can check out you on our channel. Like I said, you’re on here regularly giving information to business owners, information to hiring teams, et cetera. But if, if anyone wants to speak with you directly talk with your team or find out more about the higher authority, how can they do so,

Phil (10m 58s):
Yeah, right on the, our website is higher off.com. That’s H I R E a U T h.com. You can email me at P Sharky. My name@hiwatt.com. Our phone number here in Massachusetts is 5 0 8 2 3 0 5 9 0 1. Toll free is 8 8 8 2 3 0 5 9 0 1. And again, like we mentioned in the past, when you call, you will get a person, a w, which is a nice perk today. So we’re, we’re here and we’re easy to, to be reached.

Nathan (11m 25s):
I can confirm the, the times that I’ve called into the office, I don’t even know if it’s rang twice, each time and before somebody picks up, which is always a nice

Phil (11m 36s):
Little thing. That’s very important.

Nathan (11m 37s):
It is, like you said, it’s, it’s quick turnaround time and you’re all about saving employers, time and money. So that’s, that’s big, but thank you again for joining today. I want to remind our listeners that you can find us, of course, on our website, radio entrepreneurs.com, but also LinkedIn. We have a growing community there we’re always posting videos, but we’re also posting them to YouTube. So be sure to subscribe to us there or on your favorite podcast channel, we’re on many of the major ones and you can catch Phil on all of those platforms. Yeah. Thank you, Nathan. Thank you. And we’ll be back with more after this.