By Faith Leonard
Each year, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)® gathers talent professionals from across the nation to share the latest trends, innovations and new strategies for recruiting, engaging and retaining employees at the SHRM Talent Conference and Expo. At this year’s SHRM Talent event in Denver, Jen Hunter, Senior Director, Product Development at Equifax Workforce Solutions presented a session on the topic, “The Future of Pre-Employment Verifications: How to Get More Value with a Better Holistic Candidate View.”
As Rick Grimaldi, Partner at Fisher Phillips emphasized during his SHRM Talent speaker session, “The Great Resignation” is very real, impacting all aspects of recruiting and retaining employees across each generation. In fact, that same week, states reported 185,000 workers had filed for new unemployment benefits during the week ending April 9, with the total number of workers continuing to claim unemployment benefits at 1.47 million. While this number is well below its pre-pandemic average of 1.7 million, according to SHRM, these numbers point to a labor market still short on surplus workers.
Faced with a constantly changing talent market, it’s no surprise that strategies for recruiting and retaining talent were hot topics over the course of the three-day SHRM Talent event. Driving innovation was also top-of-mind throughout the week, as leaders in talent shared ideas for leveraging technology to help solve some of the biggest challenges the industry faces today. In case you missed it, read on for some of the insights Jen Hunter shared for adopting technology to help improve retention by enabling a more holistic candidate view.
Did you know that 80 percent of job candidates who falsify or omit critical information on their resumes are hired? While it may be tempting for a candidate to exaggerate their resume on occasion, if they lack the appropriate experience, they’re likely not the right fit for the role. This not only opens the organization up to risk but can also hurt retention – and the employee experience overall – if the new hire is not well-suited for the position.
Leveraging verified employment data during the hiring process helps confirm the employment and education history of a candidate, so employers can rest more assured that the candidate is the right fit for the role. By tapping into verified data from The Work Number database – backed by education information from National Student Clearinghouse and employment information updated each pay period from more than 2.5 million employers – employers can enable a more holistic candidate view. Pre-employment verifications, in turn, also help candidates feel more assured that their new employer has confidence in their ability to perform and be a good fit for the role.
“Bringing a candidate’s history into better focus often leads to making more informed hiring decisions,” said Jen. “More fully verifying a candidate’s history can be a key indicator for future retention success.”
While falsified information can certainly put an organization at risk, the information a candidate chooses not to include is also a critical piece of the puzzle. In her presentation, Jen gave the example of a company hiring a bus driver, where the job candidate omitted his past role as a truck driver from his resume. What might he not be telling you? In this instance, if the candidate had been repeatedly reprimanded for speeding on the job and therefore chose not to include that past experience on his resume, he probably is not an ideal fit for a bus driver role.
Pre-Employment Verifications from Equifax can help detect omissions in the hiring process to help eliminate risk, while also helping to improve retention. And because many industries or specific job types require verification of past employment, pre-employment verifications also help support these pre-hire requirements.
Talent Report™ Express leverages verified data from The Work Number to deliver all available records of employment, education and identity information in a single, streamlined ordering experience, delivering an all-in-one solution for pre-employment verifications. The Equifax data hub continues to expand with new records and data assets to help provide employers and background screeners a more holistic view of a candidate. With its all-in-one solution, Equifax is helping to bring more data together for verifying a candidate’s history more efficiently.
To learn more about pre-employment verifications, check out this recent article. Employers can learn more about pre-employment verification solutions from Equifax Workforce Solution at the link here.