CI Blog

Stay Updated With CI

Decisions, Decisions: A Tool to Ensure Compliance with State and Federal Hiring Guidelines
Michelle Pyan Michelle Pyan

Decisions, Decisions: A Tool to Ensure Compliance with State and Federal Hiring Guidelines

The start of a new year, whether it’s a calendar or a fiscal, offers a natural opportunity to review your hiring practices and policies. But the fact remains that you should never wait to implement a best practice, particularly one that ensures that you treat all applicants fairly.

Conducting a background investigation on each job applicant is widely regarded as a best practice. If you do so, you must also be prepared to follow state and federal guidelines for how you use the information revealed in such a report.

Read More
Operation Nightingale Vigilance
Michelle Pyan Michelle Pyan

Operation Nightingale Vigilance

Protect your patients, staff, and business from the dangers of falsified credentials with CI. Our investigative staff utilizes the most accurate education verification system, Primary Source. Don't rely on just an education verification, pair it with a School Accreditation inquiry to ensure all components of a subject's educational history are verified.

Read More
Understanding the Differences in New York Criminal History Data
Michelle Pyan Michelle Pyan

Understanding the Differences in New York Criminal History Data

There is a misconception between employers and their Human Resource professionals that a National or Nationwide criminal inquiry yields all criminal history information on a subject. Those that utilize those search methods only are potentially lacking key criminal data on their prospective employees. Therefore, it’s imperative for employers to know that there are four additional levels of criminal information available, each described below.

Read More
How to Keep Your Business Safe With a Correctly Conducted Pre-Employment Screening
Michelle Pyan Michelle Pyan

How to Keep Your Business Safe With a Correctly Conducted Pre-Employment Screening

Keeping a business safe and secure requires more than just security measures; hiring the right people from the get-go is crucial.

Pre-employment screenings not only help protect businesses in sensitive industries but also provide financial protection. Hiring the wrong person is costly, and exposing sensitive company information to the wrong individual puts everyone's jobs at risk.

Here are some essential steps to keep your business safe with a correctly conducted pre-employment screening.

Read More
What You Need to Know About DIY Background Checks
Michelle Pyan Michelle Pyan

What You Need to Know About DIY Background Checks

The ongoing labor shortage has many businesses rethinking their approaches to background investigations for prospective employees.

While this approach is understandable given the current hiring environment, companies need to wade carefully into these waters, particularly if they are conducting their own background checks.

Read More
To Disclose or Not Disclose: That is the Question
Michelle Pyan Michelle Pyan

To Disclose or Not Disclose: That is the Question

Interviewing for a new job can be scary, especially if you are nervous about a background investigation being performed on you. This sentiment seemed to strike a chord with LinkedIn users when asked if they should disclose a conviction during the interview.

Our experts decided it would be helpful to give some insight into what a background investigation contains and what you should do if you have a conviction. Turns out, most employers want you come right out and let them know, rather then try and sneak it past us.

Read through the latest edition of the Monthly Guardian for tips on how to handle past convictions in an interview. If you're an employer, find out what New York State requires you to do if you are ever in this situation.

Read More
The Legal Requirement that Hiring Managers Often Overlook
Michelle Pyan Michelle Pyan

The Legal Requirement that Hiring Managers Often Overlook

Contrary to what some might think, the tight labor market has not deterred companies from screening job candidates.

In fact, we are seeing more companies than ever conducting third-party background checks –some for the first time. That’s why it has never been more important to understand the legal requirements of this process as defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

Read More
Legal Marijuana and Workplace Drug Testing in New York State
Michelle Pyan Michelle Pyan

Legal Marijuana and Workplace Drug Testing in New York State

For New York State employers, the confusion surrounding legal marijuana is about more than just botany and biology. Regulations are emerging around adult-use, medical, and hemp cannabis. Maybe that’s why so many employers are taking a “wait and see” approach to drug testing.

Read More
Streamlining the Job Applicant Experience
Michelle Pyan Michelle Pyan

Streamlining the Job Applicant Experience

Good employees are hard to find – and so are qualified applicants. If you think you’ve found the right candidate for a position, you don’t want to wait too long to make a job offer. You can’t change any of that, but what you can do is streamline the application process so that you hire the right candidates faster.

Read More
Background Checks with Name-Only Matching Spell Trouble for Employers
Michelle Pyan Michelle Pyan

Background Checks with Name-Only Matching Spell Trouble for Employers

Meet Michael White. He wants a job as a youth minister, high school basketball coach, or janitor at a daycare facility. If you’re Michael’s potential employer, you know that you need to perform a background check to ensure the safety of the children. But there’s a problem – and it’s not that Michael White is hiding something from you.

Read More
World’s Greatest TV Show Press Release
Michelle Pyan Michelle Pyan

World’s Greatest TV Show Press Release

“World’s Greatest!...” is a thirty-minute show dedicated to highlighting the world’s greatest companies, products, places, and people. Each show is a fast-paced tour around the world featuring behind the scenes footage, informative interviews, and exciting visuals.

Read More
4 Red Flags to Look Out for When Doing Background Investigations Today
Michelle Pyan Michelle Pyan

4 Red Flags to Look Out for When Doing Background Investigations Today

The pandemic has undoubtedly changed several aspects when it comes to the hiring process. Normal hiring activities have been disrupted, and most recruiters are no longer able to meet candidates face-to-face before making a decision. Closures may also limit your ability to access necessary information. This underscores the importance of completing thorough background checks.

Read More
NYS OCA CHRS Is Not the Gold Standard CRAs Think It Is
Guest User Guest User

NYS OCA CHRS Is Not the Gold Standard CRAs Think It Is

How do most Consumer Reporting Agencies deal with New York State? Most will state that they are forced to use the Office of Court Administration for Statewide reports. This comes with a hefty price tag of nearly $100 per name. So, what is the solution? Well, for one, we as Consumer Reporting Agencies need to start holding the OCA accountable.

Read More
Redemption – Is it possible . . .
Michelle Pyan Michelle Pyan

Redemption – Is it possible . . .

With the labor pool getting tight, employers are looking at candidates with a criminal past differently. But they still need to weigh the risks to their businesses. As an employer, would you be comfortable with using such statistics?

Read More
Just Because It’s Legal Doesn’t Mean It Is Right
Guest User Guest User

Just Because It’s Legal Doesn’t Mean It Is Right

Many background screening providers take the path of least resistance, which almost always leads to lower costs for them. The result of this case essentially now allows background providers to pass on name match-only results. As a result, you can be sure you will see more and more of these name match-only results in your reports.

Read More
New Jeans
Guest User Guest User

New Jeans

When it comes to background investigations, you may not have heard of Commercial Investigations LLC. You may still be hanging out with the Levi’s of the industry. However, there’s a new kid on the block. Actually not so new, Commercial Investigations LLC is more than 15 years old.

Read More
"It Depends On What You Pay."​
Guest User Guest User

"It Depends On What You Pay."​

When screening the background of a potential employee, many organizations will conduct their education verifications themselves rather than leaving that responsibility to their background screening provider. While cost-saving, this could be problematic. Accepting a diploma at face value could potentially be detrimental to hiring procedures.

Read More
Sex Offender Registry: Are All Created Equal?
Guest User Guest User

Sex Offender Registry: Are All Created Equal?

That type of search, which is almost instant, is most likely only an online search of the highest, most severe sex offenders. There are a total of three levels in Massachusetts. One level is online. A second level is available via email to one location only and processed within a few days. The third level is not publicly available data in Massachusetts, and thus, not available to the general public, including employers.

Read More
Guest User Guest User

Solely the Disclosure Under FCRA

Defendant Hansen & Adkins is a motor carrier licensed by the DOT that transports cars via car carriers hauled by commercial trucks. Hansen & Adkins employs truck drivers and support staff who are subjected to employment background investigations. The defendant’s disclosure and authorization forms included a release of liability, notices, waivers, and agreements. The plaintiff argues the defendant violated the FCRA by including the disclosure with other materials.

Read More
Guest User Guest User

The Fallacy of NYS OCA Misdemeanor Redemption Policy

Reality is that the NYS OCA may not be giving you all the criminal record information you should get because the same person can have multiple convictions under different variations of their name, and thus, NYS OCA applies the misdemeanor redemption policy to each name and date of birth variation.

Read More