Consumer News And Recalls

• Feb 10, 2006 7:23 pm US/Eastern
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  Job Screening Mistakes On The Rise

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Job Screening Mistakes On The Rise

Job Hunting Resources From CBS4 And Career Builder

(CBS4) You polish the resume and apply for what you think is the perfect job. Only problem is, you don't get the position and you're left wondering why. You might be getting a bad rap without even knowing it.

That's what happened to Raymond Lorenzo. "I'm everywhere and I have applied to everything possible," he says. But he didn't have any luck.

Raymond couldn't understand it until he heard what came up during a routine background check. It said he had convictions for burglary, criminal mischief, and other felonies. The problem is Raymond didn't commit any of those crimes.

Consumer advocate Beth Givens is seeing more cases like this, now that 80 percent of companies screen potential employees. Says Givens, "I think it's probably going to be as big of an issue as say, identity theft has been for the past decade. We hear from people almost daily who are having problems with their background checks."

Bad information can result from errors in court records and clerical typos. Mistakes also happen in the screening process. Givens says, "Unfortunately there are some background companies that will just go with a quick data base search and call it a day."

If you are looking for a job, bad information like that can be an instant deal breaker. Professional background screeners want to see better standards across the board.

Jason Morris is with the National Association of Professional Background Screeners and says, "I believe there should be regulation on who is screening the screeners." He says, when doing a screening, "we physically send a researcher into those county courthouses to pull those records by hand and see if that person has a criminal record."

A company must have your consent to check these types of records. If you lose out on a job based on a screening, you have a right to see the report, and dispute it. "You write a letter and they are, by law, required to look into it," Givens says. If you find a mistake on your background report and think the screening company was negligent, experts say you do have the right to sue.

(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)