2013 Media Placements - The Abbi Agency

VirtrueTable Of Contents

Date Publication Title2/25/2013 Collaborate How To: Avoid Hiring A Bad Employee

2/21/2013 Startup50 Startup Spotlight: Virtrue

2/13/2013 Small Biz TechnologyVirtrue: The Start-Up Company That Makes

Sure You Know Your New Hire

2/12/2013 Yahoo! Small Business Advisor5 Tips To Claim Your Identity In The Sharing

Economy

2/12/2013 Yahoo! Small Business Advisor Five Ways Resume Lies Hurt You

2/7/2013 Human Resources IQDodging A Bullet: 5 Ways To Avoid A Hiring

Nightmare

1/31/2013 Business 2 Community The Flipside Of The Hiring/Firing Scare

2/25/2013

Bad employees and coworkers will happen to you. Over time, and with enough hiring cycles, someone will slip past the guarded gates. The hiring process is an imperfect one at best. We make decisions based on just a handful of signals (“She graduated from Stanford.”) and due diligence tests (“He nailed the interview.”). We spend only around 10 hours with someone before extending an offer of employment, and in doing so, commit to spend more waking hours with them than with our own family and friends.

If you’re responsible for bringing members onto your planning team or into your organization, follow these guidelines to help keep from hiring the one that should have got away.

1. Use backchannels for references. Standard reference checks are merely a measurement of whether a candidate can name three people who think highly of him or her. When it comes to really evaluating what other people think of a candidate, don’t be afraid to plumb the depths in search of an outside opinion, but do it discreetly so you don’t jeopardize the candidate’s current employment.

2. Always strive to quantify and validate competency. Some people talk a great game in interviews, but can’t deliver the goods. Test them. Do a dry run. Bring them on-site at an event to test their skills firsthand.

3. Consider workplace and education checks. Former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson lied on his resume and claimed a computer science degree he never earned. This deception went unchecked for years. One of the great things about work and education checks are that they are proxy integrity checks. Candidates who would lie about these details on their resumes are probably the ones prone to similarly destructive behavior in the workplace.

4. Trust your gut. A candidate who completes the interview process will leave an impression on you that can’t be readily quantified, because it’s ultimately an emotional judgment of them as a person that you derive from various bits of objective data. Even if the data checks out, trust your gut if you still don’t feel right about the candidate. Dig deeper. An extra half hour of due diligence on a candidate you’re about to hire is a no-brainer when weighed against the long-term consequences of hiring a bad employee.

Adam Spector is founder and CEO of Virtrue, an online identity verification service. Spector also started adoptacoral.org and is now a board member of the Coral Restoration Foundation. Find him on Twitter @adamspector2.

We all know people lie on resumes. In fact, estimates show a full 34 percent of all job applications contain false information. Some employers check references, require proof of education, and even run criminal background checks before offering a job to a candidate.

But as one San Francisco-based start-up puts it, reference and background checks can only go so far. A spokesperson for Virtrue points out that determining a person’s trustworthiness is a flawed process that only works if a former employer is

willing to be fully open. Criminal background checks are time-consuming and costly, taking employers away from their daily duties. There has to be a way to validate an applicant’s history that is both convenient and reliable.

Virtrue aims to provide that solution. The company’s Enterprise edition provides comprehensive background checks and work history verification. Virtrue specializes in verifying the integrity of information in the internet age, pointing out that most job candidates these days come to employers through online job posting sites. Virtrue uses its resources to make sure the applicant’s credentials are correct, providing information to the employer in only minutes.

As Adam Spector, founder and CEO of Virtrue points out, one bad hire can sink an entire company. Each hire matters, Spector states, and it’s important to avoid employees who can compromise the trust you’ve built with your clients and customers. Often, however, the impact of poor hiring decisions can have more subtle ramifications, such as:

Hiring takes time. Each opening attracts an average of 150 resumes. Just reviewing those resumes would take an average of 9.5 hours. That’s time a business owner could put toward bringing in new business.

References are often irrelevant. Candidates may provide pages of references, but unless those references personally worked with the candidate, they won’t be able to give that crucial information an employer needs to make a fully-informed decision. Verification of employment dates are only part of the information an employer needs before committing to adding an employee to his or her staff.

Attitude is everything. Many employers look primarily for employees with skill, but Virtrue recommends looking at the personality of the interviewee. Skills can be learned, Virtrue has found, but a positive, enthusiastic attitude is irreplaceable.

According to the American Society of Employers, in 2008, the average employee theft was $2,672–and, surprisingly, more than half of that theft was conducted by employees at management or executive level. Even if an employee has a history of stealing from employers, unless a previous employer files charges or the employer mentions it during a call for a reference, you’ll never know. Virtrue can help catch those employees before it’s too late.

Virtrue is currently offering a free 30-day trial that requires no software downloads or installation. To sign up for your free trial and learn more about how Virtrue can help with your next job opening, visit the Virtrue for Enterprise trial page at http://www.virtrue.us/enterprise-contact/.

Anonymity is your enemy in the world of collaborative consumption. Your ability to share personal spaces and valuable possessions with strangers hinges on your ability to trust one another. Trust, however, doesn’t grow on trees: it’s earned. You earn it based on personal observations or independent proof. Anonymity hurts your ability to gather these data points and thus hurts your ability to participate in peer-to-peer markets. Toss anonymity aside in favor of identity. You, your history and attributes, are a powerful asset in the trust-based sharing economy.

Since moving to San Francisco, for example, I’ve participated in peer-to-peer markets like Craigslist to buy and sell items. When listing a popular item, like a used computer, how do I choose buyers from among the flood of inquiries I receive? I choose based on trust. I need to trust that the individual will not steal my property or harm me and I also need to trust that they will show up to our appointment and not flake out. How do I make these trust decisions? Based on their identity attributes! If you are like me, you probably hope you get a real name and then go straight to Google. If they have a robust LinkedIn profile that shows they work at a reputable company, I am more likely to trust them. If they have a public Twitter account with questionable content, then I am less likely to trust them. In many ways, you are your data. Having cleaner, more trusted data helps me, as a buyer, make a better decision.

Identity used to only matter in formal settings like banking and job applications. Today, however, thanks to the growth of the sharing economy and peer-to-peer markets, your identity has newfound implications for your ability to transact with other people. Identity is not a silver bullet for trust issues in collaborative consumption marketplaces, but it’s much, much better than the alternative: anonymity. Online platforms with identity mechanisms in place can blacklist delinquent users from their services. On more anonymous platforms, however, bad actors can continue to abuse the system without corrective action or accountability.

To participate in the sharing economy you need to trust strangers and they need to trust you. Use these tips to maximize the value of your identity in these peer-to-peer transactions and build trust quickly and sustainably:

1. Presentation is key

Put your best foot forward. It starts with your profile photo – do you look friendly? Is your face clearly visible? What are you doing in the photo? People sharing their personal space or valued possession with strangers only want to transact with well-behaved and responsible individuals. Your photo, and the various bits of data tied to your identity should convey that trustworthy image. Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself: would I, based on the available data, trust me in this situation?

2. Aim for consistency

Your various online accounts – from your Twitter account to a personal blog – all speak to your identity online. If these accounts present widely different identities, that may raise a red flag with the people with whom you want to transact. Try to use the same profile photo across various accounts and maintain consistency in the information you present.

3. Manage your Google footprint

Some of the data points people will use to assess you may not reside in your personal accounts. This data might sit on third party pages indexed by major search engines and it’s important to understand what this data looks like in case someone decides to Google you. If there is vexing information about you out there that you can’t remove or alter, then be prepared to address this up front in your transactions.

4. You’re accountable now so act accordingly

Many collaborative consumption platforms have user review systems. You also become part of their community. If you behave badly when participating in sharing economies your actions could well come back to haunt you in the form of negative reviews, so always be on your best behavior. The collaborative consumption movement has brought user accountability to services that were previously unable to hold bad actors accountable. You’re no longer anonymous and your identity can be controlled in part by the people you interact with and their public judgments of you, so make sure to leave a good impression always.

5. Verify your identity where possible

People don’t have to take the data you present about yourself at face value, and some may in fact question it. Proving your identity online can be a tricky challenge. One way you can help is by linking your common accounts together – if you have a personal website, for example, you can list its URL in all of your various accounts (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc.), proving that you are the real account holder. You can also verify your identity via independent third parties like Virtrue.

Remember – you are your data. Who you are online has real ramifications for what you can do in the real world. Transact and trust accordingly.

You don’t need to be told that the job market is tough for new grads. You probably have friends looking for work or you may be looking yourself. The pressure to obtain full-time employment is powerful and can tempt those struggling to turn to less than savory means to distinguish themselves as job applicants. The phrase “resume padding” might sound harmless, but make no mistake in thinking it means anything other than “lying”. Calling a day of volunteering a semester’s worth of volunteer work? Changing your old job title from “representative” to “supervisor”? Those are lies.

You might think that a resume lie can only hurt you in the short term and that if you can just get your foot in the door and “fake it till you make it” you’ll be able to put the lie behind you. The integrity of your resume, however, has repercussions that extend far beyond any one job application or interview. Your resume is your first “introduction” to a potential employer and so it sets the tone for the impression you make. Ultimately, your resume is the foundation of your employability and as such you can’t afford to have any cracks in it.

Here are five ways resumes lies can hurt you:

1. Lies create more work for you Lies typically require you to tell more lies to support them. If you fabricate a job title and put down “supervisor” what are you going to tell an employer when they ask about your supervising experience? More lies. With each additional fabrication your deceit becomes more difficult to maintain and it increases the chances you’ll get caught. Just look at the recent case of chemist Annie Dookhan: an initial resume lie about her education spiraled out of control as her web of deceit grew over the years in attempt to support the false identity she had created for herself.

2. There’s a good chance you’ll get caught Employers can afford to be picky in today’s competitive environment – for every job opening there are hundreds of applicants waiting to fill it. If you make it to the final rounds of an interview you will face a high level of scrutiny. Your references will get called and an employer may even seek to independently verify your work and education history through a company like Virtrue. The Internet has made the world a much smaller place and it’s never been easier for employers to spot applicant lies with a little bit of online research.

3. A single lie can torpedo your career down the road As the saying goes, trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair. A resume lie can instantly break that trust in the workplace, no matter when or where you told the lie. Former Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson learned this lesson the hard way after the company fired him when they learned that he never received a computer science degree (as he had claimed for years at various companies). Decades of solid, proven job performance and promotions can be instantly undone by the discovery of a single lie in your resume, past or present.

4. Lies create unrealistic employer expectations Employers hire applicants based on their skills and experiences with the expectation that they will perform at equivalent levels. Claiming skills or proficiencies on your resume that you don’t actually possess sets you up for failure in the workplace. If you’re hired, your overall performance will suffer as you try to learn these skills on the fly, not to mention it will be painfully clear to your new employer that you’re not cut out for the job.

5. Lies can cost you references Personal references are often one of your biggest assets as a job applicant, especially if they can introduce you to a potential employer. Jeopardizing the trust your personal references have placed in you by lying on your resume is doubly foolish: it can not only cost you the job, but it can cost you your reference as well, making it even more difficult to land that next job.

We know it’s tough out there, but we urge you to steer clear of padding your resume. A lie on your resume can reverberate well beyond any single job application and set you up for professional failure in the long term. Instead of weakening the foundation of your employability with lies, try strengthening it with real experience. If you don’t have a needed skill for a job then take a class or online course or teach yourself. If you don’t have relevant experience then do an internship or volunteer work on the side. Showing initiative and a desire to improve yourself as a job candidate will set you apart as an applicant. Good luck!

Bad employees and coworkers will happen to you. Count on it. Over time, and with enough hiring

cycles, someone will slip past the guarded gates. The hiring process is an imperfect one at best: we

make decisions based on just a handful of signals (“she graduated from Stanford”) and due diligence

tests (“he nailed the interview”). We spend only around 10 hours with someone before extending an

offer of employment and in doing so commit to spend more waking hours with them than with our own

family and friends.

Would you get married to someone you’d only met for 10 hours? Hiring involves an incredible amount

of unspoken trust.

While imperfect, the hiring process actually works pretty well because most people are fundamentally

“good” – they’re not out to deceive and what you see is what you get. When the hiring process fails,

however, it can get ugly. Really ugly. The spectrum of nightmare employees runs from the incompetent,

to the socially toxic, to the downright criminal. Nightmare employees will drag teams down and impact

bottom lines.

If you’re a small, bootstrapped startup the wrong hire can literally kill you.

That’s why we want to share a hiring story we heard recently from a friend in the startup community.

What lessons can we learn from his “near-miss” hiring experience, and how can we apply them going

forward? In his words:

“We were deep in the interview process for a key engineering position. We had invested countless hours

on a couple candidates at this point, but one in particular seemed especially promising. Very talented

engineer who came off strong in interviews and he was working for a great company. So we moved to

close him and took him out for meals, drinks – the works.

We called his references and they checked out so we started to prepare an offer. He hadn’t provided any

references for his current job, however, because he hadn’t worked there long enough to have ex-

employees he could claim as references. That’s certainly something we’d heard before from candidates

and it makes intuitive sense, but for some reason it didn’t feel quite right this time around. Call it a gut

instinct.

I tracked down his CEO at a local event, and in a very discreet, round-about way, got him talking about

the engineer. He dropped this on me:

“Yeah, we fired him. Six months ago. “

“(Gulp)…Whoa. For what?”

“Fraud.”

Needless to say, we immediately terminated our courtship of this engineer. It really scares me to think

about how close we came to hiring a complete nuclear bomb.”

What are the takeaways here?

1. Don’t be afraid to use backchannels for references

Job candidates will only list positive references (obviously). Standard references checks then are really

just a measurement of whether you can name three people who think highly of you. Most people

can. When it comes to really evaluating what other people think of a candidate, don’t be afraid to

plumb the depths of your social network in search of an outside opinion. Just make sure to do it

discreetly so you don’t jeopardize the candidate’s current employment.

2. Always strive to quantify and validate competency

Some people talk a great game in interviews, but can’t deliver the goods. When it comes to quantifying

and validating skills and competencies, engineering is relatively straightforward compared to other

disciplines like sales and marketing. With good interviewers and tests you can get a pretty good sense of

whether an engineer is worth their salt. For less objective disciplines that lack discrete bodies of

knowledge and readily measurable skills, get creative and think outside the box. Ask outside friends

qualified in their field to test them if you don’t possess strong expertise in house to evaluate their skill

set.

3. Consider criminal background checks

A criminal background check probably wouldn’t have caught the fraudulent engineer in this story (since

his misdeeds were probably not reported), but where there’s smoke, there might be a previous fire that

is a matter of public record. Criminal background checks are not especially common for startup hires,

but at larger companies they are often required across the board for all new hires. These checks are

definitely something to consider, especially if the position you’re hiring for is especially sensitive (e.g.

CFO) or mission critical to the success of the company (e.g. CEO). Weighed against the long-term risks,

it’s a relatively cheap upfront investment in protecting your company.

4. Consider workplace and education checks

Remember former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson? Remember why he is now the company’s former CEO?

It’s because he lied on his resume and claimed a computer science degree he never earned. This

deception went unchecked for years. One of the great things about work and education checks are that

they are proxy integrity checks – candidates who would lie about these details on their resumes are

probably the ones prone to fraud and similarly destructive behavior in the workplace. Traditional checks

are comparative in cost and time to criminal background checks, but you should also check out

companies like Virtrue who are developing faster, cheaper alternatives to these traditional checks.

5. Trust your gut

A candidate who completes the interview process will leave an impression on you that can’t be readily

quantified, because it’s ultimately an emotional judgment of them as a person that you derive from

various bits of “objective” data you’ve gathered over the course of the interview. Even if the data checks

out, trust your gut if you still don’t feel right about the candidate. Dig deeper. An extra half hour of due

diligence on a candidate you’re about to hire is a no-brainer when weighed against the long-term

consequences of hiring a nightmare employee.

In speaking with many HR organizations, hiring companies, staffing agencies and other technology companies who are all trying to make this entire hiring process in the digital world a more seamless, efficient and authentic process, we uncovered some interesting findings.

Companies are still hesitant to spend what they did pre-housing market crash and subsequent recession. Many companies are still reeling from the penny-pinching, mass layoff (and some continue to do so), shut-down-all-but-one-office days. What this has translated to is a situation where companies are still not hiring as freely as they used to. They are hesitant, being resourceful and squeezing every last bit of productivity from their current employees that they can.

As a result, millions of capable, willing and frustrated individuals are stranded without jobs.

Why?

Perhaps fear of attrition for the costs of firing an employee. Or perhaps the fear that the economy isn’t quite on the upswing. Or maybe it’s a combination of both.

In any case, the current hiring climate is less than pleasant for thousands of former executives, recent graduates and internationals aspiring to follow their ‘American Dream’. Those that are hired often have to go through a VERY arduous and lengthy hiring process including countless interviews, tests (based on the position hiring for—ie writing samples, coding projects, design concepts), lengthy background checks that can take days if not weeks when an international search is needed, drug tests, and more. The process can take weeks if not more than a month! In a better economy, companies do not have the luxury of inspecting their qualified and eager-to-work candidates with such a sharp lens.

What is written down on paper doesn’t always make for a perfect candidate. Consider the soft qualities as well when hiring, like personality, work ethic and communication style.

Or, take queue from this recent Forbes article, The 7 C’s: How to Find and Hire Great Employees, to see how author Alan Hall changed his hiring practices.

He says, “Historically, and sadly, the only criteria I had used [to hire] were to find the candidate with the best skills, experiences and ability to match a job description. I have since identified seven categories—I call them the “7 C’s”–that you should consider to find the best new employees . . .”

The 7 C’s include:

Competent

Capable

Compatible

Commitment

Character

Culture

Compensation

Read the full article to learn what each “C” entails. It may save you the costs of a misfire hire and lead you to the kind of quality employees you might have missed if you used the basic and static search criteria currently employed.