Hiring Ethically with Worlds First Vetting as a Service Solution Using AI

Early Birds Marketplace recently hosted a webinar that explored the world’s first vetting-as-a-Service platform, which utilises artificial intelligence (AI). The webinar featured Edward Barker, principal at Crown Vetting and founder of Cleard Life Vetting Agency, as a guest speaker.

According to Edward Barker, many tend to hold the belief that, “The less you know sometimes, the better.” However, he believes that this maxim does not hold true when it comes to hiring people. When trying to decide which applicants to choose for certain jobs, it is better to have more information about them. Today, the standard process of scanning through CV applications and conducting job interviews may not be enough to secure sufficient reliable information, due to a wide variety of reasons. In fact, around 20% of applicants lie on their job resumes — while 60% of those with convictions do not admit to having been criminally convicted even when they are asked about this during job interviews.

A lack of information can lead to a company unintentionally hiring unsavoury individuals and unqualified personnel, which in turn can lead to unforeseen (and unwanted) events. 60% of all cyber attacks are committed by insiders, and while a portion of these incidents are caused unintentionally, the majority of insider attacks are deemed to be intentional in nature. 25% of data breaches are not caused by accidental keyboard presses, bad links and poor training but by the intentional actions of malicious employees. Statistics also show that 81% of non-grocery retail shrinkage, 59% of department store shrinkage and 50% of supermarket shrinkage is due to theft by employees, often even trusted members of a company’s team. In addition, 16.67% of people who work with children card holders hide a criminal record that is intentionally not examined by government screening units. Furthermore, 2% of employees use the illegal drug crystal meth, also known as ‘ice.’ Having malicious employees can eventually lead to a company’s downfall. One intriguing — and scary — statistic is that 30% of businesses actually fail as a result of employee theft.

HR officers tend to know and understand that screening is needed, but most misunderstand what the nature of the risk actually is. The insurance value is rarely recognized, and because of this, there is not much investment in pre-employment screening processes. The basic standards companies use for screening today are also not very high. In most circumstances, a driver’s license is enough to meet what a company is looking for in their pre-employment screenings.

To reduce the occurrence of these possible scenarios, it is recommended companies strengthen background screening. This will allow them to identify applicants who have criminal records, which will lead to an immediate drop in the chances of employee theft and being taken advantage of. Strengthened background checks also serve as a deterrent to unsuitable individuals who might be considering applying for roles with some companies. The Independent Commission Against Corruption (NSW) advises employers they should have, “a robust process for responding to red flags that arise from employment screening checks.”

It is helpful for companies to use better practices to improve employment screening. One of these practices is the Federal Government, Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF). The PSPF provides a reliable method for addressing security gaps within private organisations. People are considered trusted and suitable by the PSPF if they possess the following traits: honesty, trustworthiness, tolerance, maturity, loyalty and resilience. Verifying identity, confirming citizenship and performing referee checks, digital footprint checks, national police checks, financial history checks and background checks can help indicate whether an individual meets the required standards.

In order to help companies conduct strengthened background checks, part of what Edward Barker has been doing involves ground breaking research called the ‘Critical path to insider risk.’ Their goal is to predict, anticipate, detect and deter trusted insider threats. They check a combination of personal predispositions, stressors, concerning behaviours and problematic organisational responses that can lead to hostile acts (such as theft and sabotage).

The webinar was hosted by EarlyBirds Marketplace. Early Birds is a Business to Business (B2B) marketplace used by Innovators – startups, scaleups and mature, Early Adopters – private and public sector businesses, and Subject Matter Expert consultants. Earlybird's mission is ‘Enabling Society with Actionable Innovation’ through their self-service platform and assisted services and programs Explorer and Challenger where customers can access a variety of SME consultants. Explorer is an enterprise approach to Innovation as a Service to enhance existing capabilities or provide dedicated innovation services. The Challenger program is designed to quickly solve one business challenge at a time drawing on the EarlyBirds big data pool of 1.1 Million Innovations.

Those interested in hearing story of ‘Why’ EarlyBirds was created can watch this video EarlyBirds story.

For those who would like to know more about the EarlyBirds platform capabilities and assisted services, they can find more information on the Earlybirds website. One of the company's Co-founders, Jeff Penrose, can be reached for further insight as well.