{"id":690,"date":"2010-08-25T02:17:04","date_gmt":"2010-08-25T00:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=690"},"modified":"2015-04-27T22:43:22","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T20:43:22","slug":"surprise-your-behavior-is-on-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/surprise-your-behavior-is-on-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise! Your behavior is on record"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every classroom contains a few kids who are bored and like to cause trouble. When I was in school, our teachers would threaten them by saying, “This will go on your permanent record<\/span>!”<\/p>\n

The threat was effective: none of us wanted to be prevented from going to college or from getting a job. It was also credible<\/span>: we had no doubt that the school kept a file<\/span> on each of us which included comments on our deportment<\/span> \u2014 as our report cards<\/span> did.<\/p>\n

How pleasant it was to find out, as adults, that this information was not shared outside the school. There is no permanent record.<\/p>\n

Everyone is a detective<\/h2>\n

There wasn’t until a few years ago, that is. The adult equivalent<\/span> \u2014 your credit history<\/span> and your criminal record \u2014 were available only to the bank and the police, in theory. In practice, they were also available to private detectives posing as<\/span> representatives of offices that had a legitimate right to know. And of course American citizens have a right to know what information is being kept on them.<\/p>\n

With this information now available on the Internet, more and more US employers are using it to screen<\/span> job applicants<\/span>. According to the Society for Human-Resource<\/span> Management (SHRM), 93 percent of US employers<\/b> do criminal background checks on some or all candidates and 87 percent check their credit background for evidence<\/span> of fraud<\/span>. Also, 79 percent do drug tests on candidates.<\/p>\n

Employers are desperate to<\/span> avoid the cost of hiring a person who makes bad decisions or is willing to do anything illegal \u2014 as well as the cost of having to look for a replacement. “You want to have a safe work environment. … You’re trying to make sure you’re not bringing someone into the worksite<\/span> [who] has a propensity for<\/span> violence, or [a] past history [of violence],” Michael Aitken, spokesman for the SHRM, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Job applicants must give their permission for all this, but if they don’t, they won’t be considered for the job.<\/p>\n

More and more people are lying<\/h2>\n

The increase in background checks began after 9\/11<\/a>, say employment experts. The recent economic crisis has led to even more scrutiny<\/span>, as more and more desperate job-seekers stretch the truth<\/span> on their applications.<\/p>\n

“In better economic times, we see about a 20\u201322 percent inaccuracy rate in the information provided on applications<\/span>,” says Adrienne T. Taucher, vice-president of Corporate<\/span> Investigations<\/span>, Inc. “However, in these difficult economic times, we have seen up to a 30 percent inaccuracy rate, as increased volumes of applicants are vying for<\/span> fewer jobs. This situation requires employers to be on the watch<\/span> for fraudulent<\/span> credentials<\/span>, such as inflated<\/span> or fictional<\/span> employment or education history.”<\/p>\n

It isn’t even necessary to lie on your r\u00e9sum\u00e9<\/span>. David Rea of Catalyst Connection, a business consultancy<\/span> in Pittsburgh, says: “One of the biggest challenges employers will tell you is that they are having a hard time finding people who show up<\/span> for work and have a clean record.”<\/p>\n

So if you’re responsible and are willing to play by society’s rules, you’re already halfway there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every classroom contains a few kids who are bored and like to cause trouble. When I was in school, our teachers would threaten them by saying, “This will go on your permanent record!” The threat was effective: none of us wanted to be prevented from going to college or from getting a job. It was also credible: we had no … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[72,75,77,154],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1748,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions\/1748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}