uExpress.com: Ask the Headhunter by Nick Corcodilos -- (06/13/2010) ARE EMPLOYERS DEMANDING TOO MUCH CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION?

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ARE EMPLOYERS DEMANDING TOO MUCH CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION?

06/13/2010

ARE EMPLOYERS DEMANDING TOO MUCH CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION?

Q: I accepted an offer with a small company that outsources its benefits administration to a human resources (HR) provider. The provider asked me to sign authorization forms granting permission to run checks on my background, my credit and my former employers. They also want permission to release my information to any other employer who inquires about me. This is an invasion of privacy, and I declined to sign. They said if I didn't sign, I couldn't be hired. I declined and left.

I let the employer know what happened. I've already given notice to my current employer. The new employer hasn't called back. How should I handle this? Do I just sign these authorizations and hope they're used appropriately? Or walk as a matter of principle?

Never, ever resign a job before all the paperwork with the new employer is complete.

Background checks should be confidential and their use should be limited. The third-party company complicates matters. It wants your permission to release information to other companies because if you later apply to another of its clients, it can reuse and resell the investigation. Your relationship, however, is not with this third party but with the employer that's interviewing you.

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Here's what I would do. First, find out whether the employer needs such extensive authorizations, or is the HR firm demanding them for its own interest? Talk with the hiring manager directly. "I did not decline having the check done. I am glad to authorize you to have it, but I cannot allow unlimited access to personal, confidential information. I have no relationship with your HR provider."

Personally, I wouldn't trust a third party and I wouldn't grant them the broad rights they're requesting.

I think you did the right thing, but don't let the HR company control your relationship with the employer. Get in there and protect it. Please remember: I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. I know only as much about this as you've told me, and what you've told me is very troubling.

Are you talking, or are your employees looking?

If you're an employer, are you taking action to avoid losing your best employees? Are you giving them the new opportunities they may be looking for?

Invite opinions. When a worker gets good at her job, she probably has insights that you aren't aware of. Take time to ask for her opinions, and she may introduce you to new solutions.

If they're burning out, light a new fire. It's up to a manager to know BEFORE a worker gets bored with a job. Keep your workers motivated. This may be the time to tweak the job to provide a new challenge, or to offer another job.

Talk, don't review. Don't wait for scheduled performance reviews to find out what your employees are thinking. Regularly invite them into your office and ask, "So, how's it going?" Then listen.

What you hear may save your team.

Is recruiting and hiring "a numbers game"?

You've read lots of articles and a few books about hiring good people. They all seem to have one common thread: Employers must put as many irons in the fire as they can. That is, advertise an open job widely, solicit a lot of applicants, sort through them, and interview as many as you can to find the best one. You will meet some good people, and at least one worth hiring. After all, it's a numbers game!

Now it's time to fill a job. What should you do next?

POLL

1. Follow the instructions! Advertise, read a lot of resumes, interview a lot of candidates and hire one.

2. Stop and ask yourself, why do I have to kiss a lot of frogs to find one prince?

3. Let your personnel department do the hiring. It's their job to sort through all the applicants.

4. Call your industry contacts and ask them for help.

(Cast your vote for The Headhunter Challenge poll online at (your newspaper Web site here). We'll post the results along with The Headhunter's expert opinion.)

When I give a presentation, the first thing I tell the audience -- whether they're job hunters or hiring managers -- is, "Everything you know about job hunting (or hiring) is wrong." Shoulders relax. People giggle nervously. They are so relieved to hear they're not crazy. They KNOW the conventional wisdom is wrong.

Then I tell them that the big misconception about job hunting and hiring is that volume is the key. We are all taught that it's a numbers game. Job hunters must wake up every morning and get 50 resumes out before breakfast! Apply to as many jobs online as you can! Then you'll feel like you've accomplished something before lunchtime. Or, if you are a manager, keep your pipeline full of candidates so you'll have a lot to choose from.

Bunk. Let me give you a specific counter-example that blows the fallacy of "volume" out of the water.

I had lunch with John, a client, to discuss a marketing job he wanted me to fill. We spent two hours talking. For the next two weeks, I spoke with several people who worked for John and to others at his company who knew him. John had no idea I was doing this. I learned a lot about what his operation was like and about how his staff worked.

Then I talked to a handful of people around the country -- a handful -- who are experts in marketing and who work with experts in marketing. I didn't run any ads. I didn't solicit any resumes. I conducted no in-person interviews. I spoke to one candidate on the phone who met the criteria for the job. The people who recommended him were his references.

I called John back and gave him a name and a phone number. I told him to call Joe, the guy who could do the job.

John and Joe talked and then scheduled a face-to-face meeting. In the meantime, I put together a very simple resume about Joe using information he had given me and information I gathered from his references. I sent this document to John so he'd have some background on Joe, to fill in the blanks about his past.

John and Joe met. They talked at length about the projects John needed done in his department, and about the best ways to approach each one. They finished their meeting and went to lunch together, where they got to know each other on a more social level. John offered Joe a job and Joe accepted it.

One job, one meeting, one candidate. The resume was superfluous in the equation.

John called me for help to fill the job because he didn't want five candidates and he didn't want 2,000 resumes. He wanted a person to hire who could do the job profitably.

John could have done this himself if he'd just sat down and called a few people -- just like I did. Was this just a "lucky hit" for me? No. It just looks that way. I spoke to several people who would have made decent candidates, and John would have interviewed all of them had I suggested it, because he's accustomed to hiring that way.

I put all those people aside. I knew that none of them were right for the job. Too many interviews today are done for their own sake. Everyone thinks volume is the solution.

A job hunter says: "I didn't really want the job, but I went on the interview because it's good experience."

A headhunter says: "The first three candidates I sent to my client weren't so great, but I wanted my client to see the contrast between mediocre candidates and the one really good one."

A hiring manager says: "I want to see a lot of candidates because otherwise I won't know who the best one is."

Here's what I say: Figure out what sort of person you want and go find him. Ask the "shining lights" in your industry for guidance, recommendations and appropriate referrals. Then trust their judgment, but verify that the recommended individual can in fact do what is claimed. Then make your hire. It's not a numbers game.

Write to Nick at P.O. Box 600, Lebanon, NJ 08833 or www.asktheheadhunter.com.