Organizations today are increasingly concerned about the risk of corporate fraud, given the severe and long lasting legal, economic, and reputational consequences. Despite the fear of being a victim, there are still companies that do not have clear risk management programs that can reduce the chances of falling prey to a corporate fraudster.  Hiring blind is a costly learning lesson!

“Every day more recruiting firms hire our professional services, such as professional employment background checks and international due diligence, to avoid getting into unnecessary trouble”, says John Wallace, Director of Background checks at Wymoo International. For recruiting firms, it is extremely important to partner up with a professional investigation firm that can help verify candidates and their provided information, to make sure there is nothing to worry about.

Why partner up?

Talent acquisition agencies have experienced professionals working to hire the best candidates for their clients. Recruiters have a whole set of tools to select the top talent, including software, social media tools, behavior and psychologic questionnaires and many more. They are great at selecting the candidates that given their experience, education and skills can fulfill a role to its best. However, they usually have limited resources to verify other equally important things for international hiring, like criminal and court records, identity, background, reputation, and risk for fraud.

Most countries do not have national databases where recruiters can check rapidly if a candidate has a fraudulent past. Frequently, recruiters will base their verifications on a few phone calls to previous employers, but this is not effective. Typical cases of corporate fraud are complex, highly secretive, and if discovered involve scandals, which is why previous employers might not mention what really happened to anyone. Private investigators on the ground in the country where you need evidence can verify directly with the local authorities if someone has any criminal or court records, or any pending cases for fraud or other crimes, and not to mention reputation, background and identity!

Hiring in a foreign country?  Then, you and your company are at a high risk for fraud and making a bad hire.  Think it’s hard to create a fake resume and fake ID to match?  Think again.

Another reason to investigate thoroughly is that with the  more competitive employment context, fraudsters are using identity theft techniques, and these are especially used in international hires. Recruiters will be able to verify all the employment and education history, but much more is needed for proper mitigation of you risk.  If you’re serious about hiring the best, then you need to be serious about verifying your candidates.  Hoping for the best and not properly verifying an individual from another country is a high risk game, and leads to very costly mistakes for employers.

Why is it so important to be extremely cautious?

The worst thing that could happen to a talent acquisition firm is to place a fraud with a client company. There are hundreds of serial fraudsters out there and a professional firm must be able to discard them. A recruiting firm cannot predict if someone without a fraud past will eventually be tempted, but it definitely has to be able to verify and rule out those who have done it in the past.

Fortunately, recruiters can team up with professional international investigators to conduct proper employment background check investigation and due diligence investigation to minimize their risk.  If you’re doing some hiring overseas, contact today and get a free quote!

C. Wright
© 2017 Wymoo International

© Copyright 2017 Wymoo International.  All Rights Reserved.  This content is the property of Wymoo International, LLC and is protected by United States of America and international copyright laws.  Wymoo® is a registered trademark.