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Recruitment & Retention

Published September 2009

Recruiting Foreign Nationals: Effective Screening

 

  Lisa Gallagher

The best talent can come from anywhere around the world. Savvy talent managers will implement the screening criteria and systems needed to ensure global applicants are who they say they are, and are treated with respect while potential employers verify their credentials.

Modern business success often depends on the recruiting and retention of foreign nationals. Today's workforce is anything but homogeneous. Applicants may be born in Asia, educated in Europe and have previous addresses in two or three different countries. This diversity is a boon for the enterprise, but it's often a headache for talent managers charged with screening global candidates.

Hiring and maintaining a happy, efficient staff depends on a thorough, consistent background screening program applied to all employees without preference or prejudice. Background screening protects employees from harm and the enterprise from liability. It ensures compliance and helps maintain corporate culture. That's why virtually all large corporations and a big percentage of small and midsized companies perform background screening.

Background screening foreign nationals is not a straightforward endeavor, however. Virtually every country has its own rules, laws and customs that must be understood and observed in order to perform global screening. Negotiating these differences in order to secure a reliable report in time for a hiring decision requires a well-thought-out plan. Here are some guidelines.

Don't Forgo Consistency

The No. 1 best practice of any background screening program is to be consistent. Establish what checks will be made for which types of positions, and apply those standards across the board for all employees — full-time, part-time and extended workforce. It can be tempting when confronted with the complexities of international checks to forgo consistent policies in order to expedite hiring, but such a lapse can leave the company open to risk, litigation and lack of compliance.

In one case, a firm hired a foreign national before his background check was complete. When the check came back, it reported the candidate had falsified his diploma and, consequently, both his qualifications and trustworthiness were questionable. Not only did the hiring decision have to be reversed, the university in India whose credentials the applicant had forged was so outraged by the deception that officials called the police and reported the falsification.

Fortunately, new software and online background screening tools are taking the headache out of maintaining consistent hiring standards. While international screening has been available for some years from local screening providers, these checks have usually been done separately, with little conformity to U.S. screening programs. Now, it's possible for companies to access global background screening tools that direct users to apply their own screening rules in each country according to that country's laws and customs. These solutions can guide users and help avoid mistakes. Requesting a screen of a foreign national can be nearly as easy as checking a U.S. employee.