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Past Mistakes
If you thought background screening was just another formality before moving a chosen candidate into the hired ranks, then the sordid story of the paralegal who is accused of robbing Peter to pay Paul may have you rethinking that position. This May, the story of Kathy Foer-Morse, the Pennsylvania paralegal in question, caused quite a stir in hiring circles after she was arrested and charged with several counts of forgery, theft and related crimes stemming from the disappearance of $100,937 from the accounts of deceased clients at the law firm where she had worked for the past 10 months. If that wasn't enough, when authorities dug into her past, they discovered that Foer-Morse was also awaiting sentencing in New York for making off with more than $280,000 from a previous law firm she worked at, according to the news Web site Philly.com. What's more, authorities say she was using the money she stole from the Pennsylvania law firm to pay off restitution in the New York case. Could the latest incident have been avoided? Perhaps. But the news story noted the Pennsylvania law firm that hired Foer-Morse did not perform a background check prior to hiring her, and that probably didn't help. The company assumed she had been thoroughly vetted by the legal recruiter who recommended her. Rob Pickell, vice president of customer solutions for the employment screening provider HireRight in Irvine, Calif., says a level of skepticism is simply necessary in this day and age. "Absolutely [organizations] should not simply trust any staffing company that they're working with, because stories like this happen much too often," he says. Pickell recommends companies consolidate to a single background-screening company if possible, because "it's virtually impossible to put the controls in place when you have to deal with multiple background-screening companies, not to mention the efficiencies gained when all vendors and temps go through a single program." Hiring managers, he adds, should "automate as much of the process as possible to keep the administrative burden for you, your vendors and your extended workforce to a minimum." Asked to comment on Foer-Morse's second arrest, the prosecuting attorney, Kevin Steele, told Philly.com: "She clearly didn't learn her lesson." Let's just hope hiring managers nationwide don't have to go through similar ordeals before they learn how crucial thorough background checks are.
Michael O'Brien can be e-mailed at mobrien@lrp.com.
September 2, 2009 Copyright 2009© LRP Publications |
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