Safeguard Screening » education verification

Establishing an Electronic Form I-9 Account with E-Verify

Safeguard Screening — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:56:55 +0000

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) offers electronic employment eligibility verification through their E-Verify program. Some background screening companies, such as Corra Group, based in Los Angeles, is a designated agent and will help you establishing your electronic employment eligibility account. Additionally, Corra Group will integrate your electronic I-9 form with your background check screening program, allowing you to reduce double entry typing and eliminate paper forms.

Online vs. Paper?
If it wasn’t confusing enough, the USCIS notes that the current Form I-9 expires 06/30/09. Today they issued a press release indicating that the form is still valid beyond June 30th. They are requesting an extension from the OMB (office and management and budget) and until that occurs the form is still valid. At some point they will have an updated form and will release it for employers to download. When you sign up with a designated agent like Corra Group, their electronic form will automatically update with the new form, so there is no need to worry about expiration dates.

If you need a paper version of the current I-9 form, you can download it here

electronic I-9
DHS
E-Verify

Background Check Results: What to do

Safeguard Screening — Sat, 31 May 2008 20:52:14 +0000

David Evans wrote an interesting article about background checks in higher education. As our universities begin to screen more candidates including professorships, its only natural for a scholastic and thoughtful discuss to arise about the merits of the background check procedure. He describes a horror story where a candidate was not selected due to negative information reported on the background check. He states that the negative information was wrong and the candiate went through a whole rigamarole trying to get the information cleaned up, but ultimately was denied because he had “protested the negative finding”

Firstly, hiring instutions must comply with the FCRA Fair credit report act, which protects candidates from this situation. Should a candidate not be hired due to negative information on the background check, he must receive a letter stating this, and should be entitled to a copy of the background check. The article doesn’t mention what sort of negative information was listed in the report, so let’s discuss criminal records. All good background check court researchers follow a list of matching procedures to assure the degree of accurary with criminal court matches. Usually the minimum match is a full first and last name and date of birth match, but it can also include social security number, address and middle name matches. Anything less, such as a name only match, should be indicated on the report. Occassionally there are very common names, like John Smith, that happen to have the same date of birth as your candidate, so further verification via ssn, address history, and middle name can be very important. All of this should be discussed with your hiring instution when any negative information is returned.

background checks
higher learning

United Arab Emirates UAE International Education Verification

Safeguard Screening — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:35:51 +0000

According to zawya.com, the UAE Ministry of Labour has stopped their educational degree verification system that has been used by ex-patriots at part of their job application process for working in UAE. The article doesn’t mention any reasons for abolishing the 2005 law, which was administered by the Minister of Labour. Perhaps the country is tightening up its policies with regard to foreign workers.

Effective on Tuesday, certificates can no longer be verified by applying to Emirates Post, which used to verify the certificates via Integra Screen, a private company offering document verification services to applicants as part of their tie-up with the labour ministry.

When you are hiring foreign employees for work in the United States, make sure to verify their overseas employment and education. These search can take longer than a domestic search, but without checking you could be hiring a candidate with false credentials.