Legal and Effective Reference Checking, Credential and Education Verification | Sessions

With hiring decisions becoming more critical in challenging economic times, verifying past employment, credentials, and education and obtaining references have become critical. Unfortunately, falsifying or inflating employment and educational accomplishments has become a significant problem for employers. Legal limitations also create barriers for human resources professionals when obtaining and giving past employment information. This workshop reviews legal and effective techniques for the reference checking process and how to verify education and spot phony credentials and worthless degree mills. New technologies and approaches will also be reviewed, as well as special issues involving international credentials and the role of social media sites and Web 2.0 in the process.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn effective and legal strategies to verify an applicant's past employment and education accomplishments.
• Explore why employment references create legal issues for employers and strategies for obtaining information and dealing with requests from other employers.
• Learn why phony education credentials are problematic and how to spot degree mills.
• Review new technologies and approaches to credentials verifications including blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and career passports.
• Understand special issues when it comes to social media and sites and international employment and education verification.