| edit: I misread the comment and thought you were the checkr founder. Anyone know who that guy is? Here's an open letter for him: I would like you to consider making checkr less evil. I understand and respect that you run a successful business by eliminating friction for compliance, but you don't have to do it the way you're doing it. Have you ever considered what it's like to have a conviction and need to get a job? I have a misdemeanor state conviction, and I'm nervous every time I take new employment. When I was last hired, I had to use checkr and it was a terrible experience. Let me tell you what sucks when you find yourself on the wrong side of this, and give you some tips on how to become a more ethical player here: * Present your legal agreements in a better way. When I had to sign up for checkr, there were a lot of terms I had to accept. It was the kind of thing I'd normally hire a lawyer to review, but it was sprung on me during a tense job negotiation. I just had to accept it, but it was not good. Consider making a summary similar to tosdr.org for the people you're enrolling. You're pressuring people into signing unexpected legal documents, so try to at least have a little class about it. * Tell me what databases you're checking. I have a conviction in a different state than I'm employed, and I had no way to know if your service was even looking at that state's records. If I knew what you were actually searching, I would have known that I was going to pass and it would have saved me a lot of stress. * Give me a heads up. I understand that I'm not your client, my potential employer is, but why not give me a day to figure out how to handle the situation if you're going to flag me? I'd much rather get an email that says "here's what we found. we're going to automatically tell your potential employer in 24hours. if you'd like them to receive the results immediately click here. if you feel like we screwed up and this isn't your conviction, tell us here so we can have a human verify". If you do that, the public will feel like you're on their side, and your client will be happy to have a buffer to deal with "that background check is false!". * Show a status page with each database as it comes back. Right now there are people who are terrified that they're about to miss out on a big opportunity because of something stupid they did years ago. They're waiting for their checkr report to come back. Do what you can to help those people. * Help HR be ethical too. I was not informed that I was going to have a background check before I quit my previous job. Please encourage the HR people you're working with to be very upfront about it when sending out offers. It would take no effort to add to your training materials as a helpful HR tip. Maybe encourage them to use your company logo as part of their offer letter with an "Checkr Verified Employer" badge or something. It's branding for you and it's useful for applicants to know what they're getting into. Companies like yours are setting a new standard for what's ethically acceptable. You're probably going to eat the market and be worth billions, so maybe consider setting a good example on the way there. And remember that decision makers will go through your service too. |