Marty Britton
Marty is the President and CEO of Britton Management Profiles Inc.
Her company partners with other companies to deliver pre-employment verification services to help diminish the hiring of misrepresented and fraudulent candidates.
Transcript
Maureen Farmer
Marty Britton is the president and CEO of Britton Management Profile, Inc. (BNP)—the first ever reference checking company in Canada. Incorporated in 1974, BNP has been in business for over forty-five years. BNP is passionate in helping their clients make informed hiring decisions so they can hire the best talent available with a strong global presence. BNP conducts verification checks in a variety of countries, and I'm curious to find out more what countries you serve. When Marty took over the company from her father, the late David Britton, 24 years ago, the only service the company offered was reference checking. Continuing the bold Britton legacy, Marty has since added a wide range of pre-employment screening services to their list of products from criminal and credit checks, global sanctions, fingerprinting, education and employment verifications and exit interviews. In addition, they are excited to offer social media checks using the power of artificial intelligence to complement and enhance the ability to spot employment risk of a hire far in advance during the pandemic as the needs of BMPs clients evolve. They are now going beyond the buzzwords and taking action to support businesses. Therefore, BNP is proud to strategically partner with a pandemic procurement compliance expert to provide a full suite of services to empower businesses and hiring talent, reopening strategically and thriving safely. BNP is a member of the Professional Background Screening Association, and Marty is the current chair for the Canadian chapter. The company is also a diverse supplier and is certified members of WBE Canada and WEConnect International. Marty is also a proud member of Women's President Organization, a peer to peer advisory committee board in which Marty is actively involved in. Marty is also a recipient of the 2014 Enterprise in Women of the Year award. Congratulations, Marty. Now Marty is humbled to receive opportunities to share her experience and practical insights as president and CEO of BNP at various events. And I just want to say, first of all, thank you so much for joining me today and I'm so happy to have you here. I know that people listening to this conversation today will come away with insights that will help mitigate the risk of hiring. So welcome, Marty.
Marty Britton
Well, thank you, Maureen. Thank you for that introduction. And it's a pleasure to be here today and to share information with you and your audience. I'm delighted.
Maureen Farmer
So Marty, I know today that we're going to talk about a lot of your products and services. And a new one that's very fascinating to me is the identity verification service that you offer, which will be very important for organizations as they open up post pandemic. So we'll talk a little bit about that later on in the conversation.
Marty Britton
Love to. Yeah, that would be great. I think it's going to really be a game changer in making sure that companies really hire who they think they're hiring.
Maureen Farmer
That's wonderful. You and I had had a conversation back in 2013 and the big conversation back then was on the heels of 9/11. Now we have Covid-19. So what I'd love to start with is ask you some trends in terms of what you're seeing in the marketplace today.
Marty Britton
Absolutely. There's been a lot because of the time that we've been in business. We have seen so many different trends and evolutions of the whole background screening industry, because you have to think when we started in 1974 at that point, we were strictly just the reference checking company. And at that point we were an investigator reference checking company because people didn't give references. You went into companies and you would dig and you would find your own actual references. Consent wasn't really required at that point, so that was kind of the beginning. But the trends, I think the two biggest trends that we've seen that have really changed the industry, as you mentioned in the introduction, was 9/11. That was a big, huge change because before 9/11, nobody did a criminal check. I can't imagine any company today hiring without somebody doing a criminal check. That I think was the biggest trend. And now with Covid-19, I think you're going to see a lot more screening. Identity verification is going to be the big trend that's going to come out of Covid-19. And that's because how do we really know who we're hiring? We're doing everything remote today. And how do you know that John Doe really is John Doe or is just somebody impersonating him? There's been a number of trends, but I think those were kind of the two big ones that I've seen over time.
Maureen Farmer
And with 78% of candidates lying on their resume, according to a study that was conducted in February of 2020 by Zippia as I see here, that's a shocking statistic. And I can verify that a number of my own private clients have been hired without any face to face interaction with the employer, so they've been screened, they've been selected, they've been onboarded without any—there is, you know, background check, reference check—but no verification of that person's identity. And I can see that that is going to likely cause a great deal of risk for organizations. And it'll be interesting over the next 18 to 24 months to see how that plays out.
Marty Britton
It absolutely will. That number is staggering when you think about it, the 78 percent of candidates that misrepresent themselves. And just a note on where we see most of that misrepresentation. It's actually in the employment verifications and the education verifications. So often we'll see someone indicate that they have a degree, Bachelor of Arts, University of Toronto. However, they may never have actually graduated. They may have just been in the program. And unless you actually pick up the phone and call that university in question, you may not know that. And again, the 78 percent is huge in the employment verification. This is where we see it so often on the resume, people will stretch their dates of employment. So it looks like they don't have any gaps of employment on their resume. And that's such a no, no, you shouldn't be doing that. But what's really scary is they'll often misrepresent their position or title, what they were. And that's, you know, sometimes depending on the misrepresentation that could be moving into the fraudulent area if someone totally misrepresents what they were doing. So, yeah, that 78 percent of people misrepresenting themselves is very, very high. And that's where we see it the most is in the employment and the education verification piece.
Maureen Farmer
So, in terms of the employment verification, in terms of title, are we looking at somebody who may have been or was a VP of finance, for example, and in their CV they claim that they were a CFO? Or is it more egregious than that? Is it more not that? What have you seen? What has been the most shocking I guess?
Marty Britton
Position absolutely is. But I think what's really shocking is how they embellish their dates of employment so it looks like they have no gaps on their resume. They may have been laid off. They may have been off work for a year, but they're going to position those dates on their resume and their CV to look like there were no gaps. And that's really concerning for us.
Maureen Farmer
Is that a predictor? So, is that what the research says? I guess that is intuitive, I suppose. But, you know, people who do these things, lie on their resume or, you know, stretch the dates or the titles...is that a predictor of fraudulent activity?
Marty Britton
That is a tough one to answer, because I think a lot of people will stretch dates minimally, and I'm sure that probably would be the end of that. But it is an indicator, obviously, if someone's going to stretch to represent themselves on their resume, it becomes the question. Well, right now we've lost the level of trust. Now, do we trust what else they're going to say to us? And then we start to question that. And I think once you start to question the trust of your candidate, it's a real issue because we know how much it costs to replace an employee. Now, do you want to bring them in on that misrepresentation? It's just something that candidates, when they're doing this, think it's a small thing. But as an employer and you're bringing someone into your organization...it might be a small thing depending on what was misrepresented. It might have just been a few months to show that they were not laid off. But then how do you know that that's where it stops? That's the big question, right?
Maureen Farmer
Right. Absolutely. Well, with a 78 percent statistic, that's a little bit disheartening, I would think, you know, to have that degree of misrepresentation. So, you know, given that in many industries, getting good talent can be very difficult in specific areas, you know, data analytics, artificial intelligence and other types of industries and expertise, how far are employers willing to go when it comes to...'OK, well, you know, someone fudged their date or fudged their education a little bit'. Are you seeing employers willing to acquiesce to that a little bit based on the talent that they see?
Marty Britton
Absolutely. And also, it depends on the position that the candidates are applying for. That's kind of where it starts. But I think some employers will let certain things go because they know that slight misrepresentations are telling. They might not be a deal breaker for them, but for others, absolutely. It doesn't matter how much the misrepresentation is, I think, Maureen, it really kind of also depends on the role that the person is applying for. That's key for that. If it's at an entry level, someone, you know, is just trying to get started. I think an employer may tend to be more forgiving of that. But the higher up you go. Absolutely not. There can be no misrepresentation because that stuff could easily be tracked and verified as well. So I think people starting out, Any employer might say, 'you know what? We're going to bring this candidate on anyway. Everything else is looking great'. It also depends on the market, how hard it is to get a good person in the right seat. Sometimes it's an employer's market and sometimes it's not. So you have to look at that variable as well. How hard is it to get really good talent? So if you've got the perfect candidate for all aspects of the job, but they might have misrepresented their employment by a couple of months, I think an employer may be forgiving of that. It just would depend on the position and what is actually being misrepresented.
Maureen Farmer
So does your organization go back to the the employer and say, you know, John Doe misrepresented. These are the facts and let them deal with it? Or do they get you involved in that conversation with the candidate?
Marty Britton
No, we never deal with the employer. So when we're conducting an employment verification, we typically start with the H.R. department of that company. We ask them for information. We have to provide consent from the candidate. candidate. They know that we're doing this because we live in Canada. We have consent. We get the information. The employer at that point just gives us back information. We're just one of probably a million calls that they've had that week to verify employment verification. At that point, they don't know what the candidate has in their resume. We're just getting information from their database and passing it on to our client. So that company that we're doing the employment verification with is not going to know what that candidate put on their resume. That's only going to be the potential employer who is going to see that.
Maureen Farmer
Right. I guess I'm curious about the. So, you do your check and you do your report and the report discloses or uncovers a potential issue with the candidate. Do you ever discuss that with the candidate or is that only through the employer?
Marty Britton
We're not allowed to get involved with that aspect. Our job is to gather the information.
The authenticity of the information. That's our job. Then we give it off to our client who has retained our services to gather it, and then it's out of our hands. Legally, we're not allowed to get involved at that point. We just provide the facts, and then the client...it depends on many things, how they react to that. Again, the position, their need to fill that seat and what the misrepresentation is, how minor it is, versus if it's...sometimes we go from a minor misrepresentation to fraudulent activity. So where do you cross that line? That would be the individual company's decision to make it.
Maureen Farmer
So, I guess the the the other question I had relating to trends, what do you see primarily in terms of differences between Canada and the United States? You and I both have a client, fairly significant client base in both countries. What are you seeing in terms of employment verification and trends?
Marty Britton
So, I think the big thing...it comes down to privacy rules and regulations based on those countries. So Canada, as you know, we have very tight regulations for privacy and regulations, whereas the US has different rules and regulations. So, for instance, the big one, the huge difference here between the countries is let's talk about criminal record checks. In Canada, we guard our criminal record database very closely. The RCMP looks after that. Local police services have access to that criminal record information. It is very difficult to get out of Canada. You must have consent. And it's a private database that only authorized people are allowed to go into and get that information out of. So we have partnerships with police departments providing the correct consent that we can get that information. The big difference here with the US is criminal record information is public in the US and I personally think that causes a lot of issues because if you have a John Doe who has a criminal record in the US and he has a similar date of birth to someone who doesn't, that poor John Doe who doesn't have that criminal record is going to get stopped at every job opportunity or anything that he's applying for with a criminal record. And here's the big problem. We're finding more and more with the US...because criminal record information is public and often misled on how to get it, if somebody knows they have a name that is similar to someone who has a criminal record, they may apply for multiple jobs, get declined because it shows that they have a criminal record and then they could sue, try to sue that company and say, 'hey, that wasn't me'. But this is why it's so difficult in the US to get criminal record information. And there's so many different types of criminal record checks you can have run in the US. You can have a seven year, a year, there's endless numbers, whereas in Canada it's very simple. We have a clear or not clear. The person either has a criminal record or they don't have a criminal record. So, it's much easier in Canada to get that information. It's more complicated in the US and the privacy rules and regulations differ so much.
Maureen Farmer
So, time to hire must take a lot longer in the United States than in Canada. For that reason, I would think.
Marty Britton
Absolutely. That's huge. That's a huge bone of contention with a lot of our clients, because in Canada we can get criminal record information back in two hours. In the US, it's going to depend on the person's name, how many people have that name that could share a criminal record and how far back they want to go and what type of criminal record check they want to do. So, yes, it you know, we've seen it take, you know, on average, let's just say for the US, probably three to four business days, but we've seen it take even longer, depending on the name of that person. And if somebody with a similar name is popping up in the database with a criminal record now, it can take an extensive search. And the same applies...not as great a difference with employment and education verifications, but there are certainly different privacy rules and regulations that you have to comply to. And that's what causes the challenge for us.
Maureen Farmer
And of course, you know, there's new trends now, not new, I guess, so much anymore. But you're doing a lot of social media. We talked a little bit about this before we started the recording...about how employers can or can't use social media for screening purposes. So I'd love to talk a little bit about that.
Marty Britton
Yes, social media is...it's a fairly new check. Again, what's really important is that we have the consent of the candidate that we're going to be doing social media checks because we live in Canada. So we need consent. We always would ask for that. I think the big challenge with social media checks is making sure that you have the right John Doe. OK, so you have to get a lot of information, especially when you're dealing with someone who has a common name. You have to really dig deep and make sure that you have the right John Doe for the social media access. That's the most important thing. And also, you know, consumers today are holding companies to high values. And if you see an employee who has poor contact and then you're going to be bringing that employee into your organization, that's public available information that anybody can see. So then you're going to gave people asking, well, why would they have hired someone? If you go online and you see that they have such poor social media profile, why are you going to bring somebody into your organization and it could become toxic and cause all kinds of problems. So consumers really are holding companies and high values when it comes to the social media part.
Maureen Farmer
Oh, I agree 100 percent. I have a colleague. She's a VP of Human Resources for a biopharmaceutical company, and they were hiring somebody for the production team. And she just discovered through the checking process that the gentleman that they were going to hire had a photo on his Facebook account of sitting on a the hood of a car with a handgun. And that caused a great deal of concern for her. She approached him and mentioned it to him and he removed it. Unfortunately, several months later, they did offer him the position and he accepted it. They ended up terminating his employment, not for that type of cause, but for poor performance.
Marty Britton
Yeah, yeah, yeah! I know, it's a problem.
Maureen Farmer
And this was a while ago. So, I wonder if...this was probably five or six years ago, not that Facebook is that old, but it's not that young either. What are the rules around accessing social media for reference checks for companies in Canada and the United States? Are there rules? And how were they implemented?
Marty Britton
Absolutely. Thankfully, we live in a country where we do have rules. An employer can only really look at what is publicly available information. That's a very important thing for them to know. They cannot ask for passwords. They cannot ask for that sort of information and actually log in to someone's account...that's crossing the line. Absolutely. That I would not recommend. They can only report on what's public information. And here's why we recommend employers not actually do that job themselves. It's very cost heavy. Think about this, an average salary for an employee...whatever it's going to cost you to have your employee. And do you want them going online and doing a social media check for somebody? It's very cost heavy. And the other problem with that is now you're playing the detective, right? You start to go down this rabbit hole and you think, 'oh, the right John Smith'...And then you start looking at all these John Smiths and then you're really not 100 percent sure if you have the right candidate, if they have a common name. But more importantly, once you as a potential employer see something, you can't un-see it. And how do you know that it was that John Smith? So now you already have these biases in your head thinking, 'oh, I saw a picture of that candidate. He had that gun. He was sitting on the hood of his car'. And now you have this perception and now you've seen it and now you can't un-see it. So, there's many reasons why a company, if you're going to be hiring, should really be staying away from doing these sorts of checks yourself, because you're not, I don't think, have a level playing field with all the candidates. You just need the facts presented to you. So that's why I would really caution clients doing their own social media checks. It's very expensive. And again, coming back to that, once you're seeing something, you can't un-see it. And the number is quite high of companies that naturally do. Now, linkedIn is a different thing. LinkedIn, that's going to be the first place most employers are going to go. And I would recommend going to someone's LinkedIn profile. That's publicly available information...that is no problem. And people put that out there. That's almost like becoming a lot of people's resumes. So, I got no problem with the potential employer going to someone's LinkedIn account. But after that, that's where it should probably stop. And you need to bring in someone who has the the software to do this. It is time consuming work to go in and do social media checks. And if you're anything like a lot of us, once you start going in to look for a candidate, the next thing you know, you're going to go shopping online...
Maureen Farmer
Ha ha! It's an interesting challenge for sure for organizations. And I'd like to talk a little bit about the...you talked about the software that you use to do that. Is this the artificial intelligence that you speak of in your pitch deck here, or is that something different?
Marty Britton
Yeah, we use software. We have software that we use to run the social media checks. So, we put all the information into the social media, check the candidate's name, address. We try to put like where they lived, if you can. The more...it's a database search Maureen. So the more information you can put into it, the more information it is going to extract. So, it's really important to gather as much information as possible . We even list the companies where they've worked in the past when we put this into the software to actually start the search. And then the search is done within minutes and it keeps pulling up information and then we'll kind of have a quick visual look to make sure that it is the right John Doe, that, yes, this John Doe does live in this province or state, that this John Doe did work at this company. And then we keep running it through the software. It can actually go through the software about three or four different times as we extract more information from it. And then we'll just keep continuing and fine tuning the search until we're absolutely one hundred percent sure that we have the right John Doe. If we aren't 100 percent sure that it is right, we are not going to report any information. So, that's an important piece. We need to be one hundred percent sure. And that search can take a couple of days. But it's being searched by a computer versus an individual and you know how expensive it is. So we use a lot of machine learning to gather the information. But there's also a human analytic component that we have to get involved with to kind of cross-check to make sure everything's fine.
Maureen Farmer
So, human analytics. Describe that a little bit. Is that just...I shouldn't say just. But is that a matter of going through a checklist or some type of a process to weed out some of the more qualitative information?
Marty Britton
Absolutely. And it's our our staff who actually sit there and go through the information. And they're trying to make sure if they're pulling up multiple information, that it is the right John Doe, so that's where the human analytics from our end comes in, and that doesn't take a lot of time because we've already used the machine learning part to gather all the information. We then get the human analytics part involved in searching, we'll pull up information. Then we'll continue to run that through the software until we're absolutely sure that we have the right John Doe. But yes, you have to get the human analytics involved a little bit because we're looking for other things, mostly geographical location and things such as former companies where they work to see what's popping up. So you do have to the machine learning...it is great. It's saves us days of searching and gives us an opportunity to do other things like shop! That part is really important, the machine part. But you still need to involve human analytics, especially the common name ones. That's more problematic. The name John Smith that lives in Toronto. Let's see. We're probably going to see a few.
Maureen Farmer
So, I notice on LinkedIn and when I was working back in the day, when I was working in Human Resources Management, we would use LinkedIn and we would look at the resume and a lot of applicants would not be legally entitled to work in the country. So they may be in Bangalore or Dublin or somewhere like that. But their LinkedIn profile says Toronto. Do you come across that yourself when you get the resume? Is it different from the LinkedIn profile? And do you feel that that is a a misrepresentation? Is that misrepresentation that's worthy of note?
Marty Britton
I hear you on that. It could be construed that way...that it could be a misrepresentation, especially when you're looking at geographical areas. And I think that's going to become more of a problem now in the after Covid world when we're hiring differently because we're going to continue to hire differently. This is going to be one of the takeaways from Covid-19...will be the way we hire. And I think that will become important. And again. To me, maybe it's just a slight misrepresentation, but if you're going to misrepresent the location and people may want to do that for certain reasons, they may want to feel like they're from Toronto, but they're not. That's huge again for us right now. I think it's really important to actually know physically where that person resides.
Maureen Farmer
Does it matter, though? Does it matter where they reside?
Marty Britton
Well, it depends on the role. Yeah, it may not matter. I mean, I think post-Covid, it's not going to matter as much. But if you're hiring salespeople, let's say, for example, and at some point you're planning to bring them back in to work at some point, we don't know what's going to happen with a lot of companies. Some companies are letting their office space go altogether. Some are planning to bring people back. It's going to be such a different hiring world after this is all over. And it's really hard to kind of know where that's going to go at this point. I'm excited to see where it will go. I think it's going to create a lot of opportunities for a lot of companies to hire some really great talent that no longer have to be in their cities. It's going to be interesting to see where the hiring goes after it's over and we resume a normal hiring practice again.
Maureen Farmer
Right, right. So, in terms of industries most at risk, which industries do you find are most difficult in terms of misrepresentation or fraudulent activity? If you can point to a specific industry, just to give a sense of...you know...
Marty Britton
That's a tough one for me to answer. So, I'm just going to go out here and make an assumption because I don't have any stats or information on that. But I think what industries would be harder would be when you're bringing in warehouses or plants or things like that, where you're bringing in large volumes of people to work. That's where this might be a little more difficult to go through this process. I'm really not sure on that one, but I see a lot of different challenges after this and so many of them we're not really aware of yet as we're just slowly starting to emerge into a more normal world. I'm sure it will be some time yet. It's hard for me to predict where we're going to be going in the future, but I'm excited to find out where that is and and see where that all goes for sure.
Maureen Farmer
At the more senior level, so at the board of directors level, do you do any reference checks and background checks in general for a board of director level and investor level...like private equity and organizations like that?
Marty Britton
Yes, we do. That always has kind of been our niche...the senior level. We started working with Knightsbridge Executive Search. Oh my God. Over forty years ago and we still do all of their high level positions. That has always been our niche. That's a very complicated and important role to make sure that the candidate is who they say they are. And we really shine in that area. We have a team that specializes just at that senior level who does that. And that's huge today because that's where your big, big, huge costs are. If you're hiring a recruiting company to bring them on, it's very, very expensive to bring on talent at that level. So, due diligence is absolutely a must. And like I said, that's where we spend a lot of our time...in that area. Companies realize how much it is costing them to bring somebody on at the board level. And we love doing the board work because it's kind of interesting. It's a little different and it's very unique. And there's some wonderful candidates out there. And we just really enjoy doing that level work.
Maureen Farmer
And so how is it different, Marty?
Marty Britton
Where it's different is the complexities of the interviews that we're conducting. We're not just kind of checking boxes over your standard reference check questions. They get very involved. And it's more of an investigative style of reference checking where we're really kind of at the board level. You have different references. So, they're not typically employment type references. And employers will tend to be maybe a little bit guarded about what they say in case of privacy or compliance. But if you notice at the executive level, at the board level, people are more open with giving information. And it's just great. We just like like I said, we have a team that just specializes in that area. And the interviews can be long so we have to book them out sometimes a couple of days in advance because we're going to be expecting somebody to give us forty five minutes of their time to go through a very detailed interview. Well, you just can't call somebody up and ask them, 'so if we can have forty five minutes of your time'. So, we have to book them out way in advance, whatever works for their schedule. And yeah, like I said, we just love doing that sort of work.
Maureen Farmer
So, the investigative style, can you talk a little bit about what that looks like?
Marty Britton
So, the investigative style is when we're calling up a company, we always start with H.R. because that's where we should start. And we're going to start, first of all, wanting to verify employment and get the information from the department. And then we'll start asking questions from there to see what type of information that they can give to us about that. I think today it's getting harder and harder, though, to get that information out of H.R. because they're usually now just checking boxes, verifying dates of employment positions, reasons for leaving...to get deeper into that. It's harder on just a regular employee level. And that's where if we're going to be doing the references at the executive senior level, that's where it's a lot more rewarding and challenging because at that point, someone is giving consent for us to talk to somebody and that's where we really shine. And you can really dig deep and really create a very detailed profile on someone. So that employer who's now going to be looking to hire that person has a whole lot of information on that candidate without actually having to have done the work. But more importantly, now they're being objective. They don't have any preconceived ideas. And I think that helps them make better decisions, more accurate decisions, and that...
Maureen Farmer
...it takes the halo effect away.
Marty Britton
Absolutely. I like that...takes away the halo effect.
Maureen Farmer
So, I'm here looking at areas of concern. So you talk here a bit about harassment and bullying and safety of employees and clients and avoiding negligence and mitigating the risk of bad publicity. Can you talk a little bit about that and where you've seen that happen in the past? Because I would think at the board level, executive level, bringing the wrong person...and I mean, we can only point to the governor general of Canada, for example. I'm guessing that you were not on that file?
Marty Britton
No, we weren't. But yeah, that's a good one. Especially today as people have a stronger social media presence. And here's the thing with social media. What goes out on social media usually stays out on social media. And that's why it's really super important to do those checks, because you've got...really anybody coming into your company, it's really important to know what they're putting out there. And that information is really only available in that regard. And again, back to that...your H.R. people should not be doing that because they're no longer being objective, because of the fact that once they see something, they can't un-see it. So it's really, really important. And they're also playing detective, right? You know, they're like, 'yeah, I'm going to look into this and look into that'. And the next thing you know, hours, hours, hours go by and you get really inconsistent results. It's very expensive. But at the end, the day gets very messy too.
Maureen Farmer
Yeah, I think process definitely improves efficiency and reduces costs for employers for sure.
Marty Britton
Yes, that's important. Just the efficiency so that every person that you are onboarding has gone through the exact same process and you're not missing anything. That's huge.
Maureen Farmer
Yeah. Legally defensible. Absolutely, yeah. So, in terms of cost, tell us a little bit about some standardized benchmark costs for, you know, maybe making the wrong hire or whatever your industry stats point to in terms of trends.
Marty Britton
Yeah, so that's a good question. So let's just say they're paying to replace an employee, it costs two hundred and thirteen percent of your salary. That's the average. 213%. So if you have an employee that's earning one hundred thousand dollars a year and you bring on the wrong person and now you have to replace them, typically the average is going to cost you two hundred and thirteen thousand dollars to replace that employee. That's a lot of money. That's really why it's important to take the time, do the due diligence so that you don't have those ridiculous costs to replace an employee.
Maureen Farmer
So, what's your guess, Marty, in terms of the number of employers out there that fail to do the due diligence? Is there a percentage there? Is there an idea of what that looks like?
Marty Britton
It's hard for me to answer how many employers don't do that due diligence. I'm thinking today that a lot more do, especially because of brand awareness and things like that. I think companies are just really being more careful today. I think Covid-19 is going to impact that as well because of the way that we do hire. But I do think we're going to see more and more people really taking the time to do the due diligence and cut down on on making those wrong hires. Because, as you said, the cost. Right. It's a lot.
Maureen Farmer
I'm sure you've seen the movie called Catch Me If You Can.
Marty Britton
Oh, yeah. That's a great movie.
Maureen Farmer
With Leonardo DiCaprio. And it's an absolutely fascinating movie. If anyone listening here today has not heard it or seen it, rather, I recommend watching the movie. It is just an absolutely incredible eye opening movie. And I'm sure that it happens far more often than we imagine. You think about people like...I'm just trying to think of...there's a Netflix movie or documentary on it. I can't think of his name off the top of my head. But, you know, there are a lot of people out there that are doing very well at misrepresenting themselves.
But I think he just passed away in prison not that long ago. And I can't think of the name, but I'm sure if you wanted to Google Ponzi scheme movie on Netflix, it'll pop up.
Marty Britton
Yeah, I think you could. But Catch Me If You Can. That's a classic. Yes, absolutely. It kind of validates everything that we do because people do this, you know.
Maureen Farmer
So, I don't know if this is an appropriate question to ask, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Are there any countries that you're aware of that have a higher risk factor or risk profile in terms of fraudulent candidates?
Marty Britton
No. You know, Maureen, we're a global company. We do a lot of work in Canada. That's our main country. We do a lot of work in the US. We do a lot of international work, especially. We're doing more now because of Covid-19 because companies can hire great talent from other countries...they're all working remotely. So this is going to become a bigger global thing. We have a partner who we work with in India who pulls global information for us. So, even if you're hiring somebody remotely, I think it's really important to make sure you do your due diligence and do those criminal credits, all that sort of stuff, especially, my God, if you have somebody working in finance remotely, you want to make sure you do a proper credit verification on them. No, I think it's going to change. And we're fortunate enough to have a great partner in India to help us get access to all global information, no matter where the person lives in the world. You need to be checking. And I think we're going to be doing a lot more global hiring. And I think it's a great thing because it just opens up a lot more access to talent, right?
Maureen Farmer
Oh, there's no question. I mean, we're working with clients right now in Australia and in Ireland and all kinds of interesting places for sure. What has surprised you most about your business so far? I know you took over the business from your dad twenty four years ago, and you would have been involved in the business at some point throughout that period of time. When you look over your career in your business so far, what has surprised you the most so far?
Marty Britton
I think what's surprised me the most is technology...how technology has moved the business forward. Every business globally, obviously, how it's changed things, how access to information is so much more readily available. It's about integrations being able to build platforms that have such powerful technology because of integrations. Integrations have been huge for us in scaling our business, just having access to the technology and the integrations. It's a great world out there today. I think we have so much opportunity and we've seen so many changes. And yeah, I think the technology and integrations are what's going to really change things and allow us to get data more quickly, more accurately, and that's pretty much what our clients need. They need quick access to data. And now that we're hiring globally because of our integrations that we have with different partners and our business partners in India, it's just great how fast we can get information today. And you don't want to lose candidates. Hiring is very expensive and you've got multiple candidates you want to bring on board. And they've got job offers. People have job offers. So you want to make sure you do your due diligence in a quick, timely manner so that you don't lose great talent, because that's hard to get today and you want to retain that talent. So you want to go through the process as quickly as possible. And without all those integrations and partnerships that we have, things would take time. So, I think the technology has really helped us.
Maureen Farmer
...to hire absolutely critical...KPI for sure. So, walk us through briefly for the benefit of the listener here and for my benefit as well...walk us through the process for engaging in management profiles. Like how do you have a conversation. How long does it take to get a report?
Marty Britton
OK, so it depends on where. And that's the main thing. Right. So, you know, if you're just doing a criminal check report and it's in Canada, it's easy peasy. You know, you're going to get it back in a couple of hours, as again, I mentioned earlier, about the complexities of the US. So it depends where you're hiring. Canada—easy to get information based here. We have great contacts. We can do it. If you're hiring in the US, you can expect things to take a little bit longer globally. That depends on a country by country basis. So it's kind of hard to get that information out. But yeah, we have a great online system that people can use. But it's also important to know that we do keep our data in Canada. Our data always stays in Canada. So it's just an easy process to order. You don't have to worry about data going outside of Canada. And yeah, we can help globally in any country in the world. Now, it's nice, especially post Covid when we're going to be, I think, continuing to hire great talent remotely.
Maureen Farmer
Yeah, in a very different way. So, I have one more question after this one, because I know time is marching on here. The question I have next is around...OK, so we want to bring on a new independent director. We're a publicly traded company and we have gone through the selection process. We're down to two candidates and we want to give one an offer and we want to do the most comprehensive check that we can. Can you give us a sense of how long that might take if it's in Canada, for example?
Marty Britton
Yeah, that's a good question. If you want to do the most when you're saying the most comprehensive check, that means that you're going to want to check your criminal checks, your credit checks, your employment verification. Education verifications are important. Any other credentials that you may want to verify? You're obviously going to want to conduct some references. In the ideal world, we're talking (in Canada), we can complete that task from beginning to end in three business days. Now, if we're conducting references, which at that level, I think I highly recommend that you do conduct references...we always say to our clients it is dependent on the availability of the references. So, but on average, we would like to say three business days to complete all your due diligence there, depending on availability of references. But the nice thing about our system is that our clients log in and they can view...they have access to a report 24/7. They can log in and see what's been completed. And the report populates as information is added into it for the client to view 24/7. And then once all aspects of the background check are complete, the reports finalize and then the client receives an email notification letting them know. Report for John Smith is ready to pick up and then they're kept in the loop all the way through. But they do have access to the information 24/7. They can log into their account and see what's being completed as it's going along through the process.
Maureen Farmer
That's an excellent service. To know that you have real time access to that due diligence process.
Marty Britton
Yeah, the criminal checking can like I said earlier, come back in a couple of hours. So that's the first thing they're looking at. They're going to submit a request in the morning. They're going to be checking online in the afternoon for a criminal check. Oh, great. It's clear now they can kind of you know, sometimes we have some clients that will run the criminal check and the credit check if it's a finance role, before they'll run the other aspects of the check because they come back within a few hours and then...the bigger stuff.
Maureen Farmer
So, if it comes back positive for the criminal record, then they pretty much stop the process at that point?
Marty Britton
Yes, potentially.
Maureen Farmer
Yeah. And I mean, sometimes, you know, people make mistakes in the past and they may have a DUI, for example, or something. And I won't say misdemeanor because those things are still very serious. But, you know, things have certainly changed from a legal point of view over the past twenty five years as it comes to driving impaired. You know, so that may not be a deal breaker necessarily.
Marty Britton
It may not be. And that's what we see a lot. We see the DUI is from 1970. Something like that in Canada is still going to show on your record when you apply for the job. People will usually forgive that DUI from 1986 or whatever. But yeah. So that's why, that's why it's important. Now it's funny because in the US those DUI's from 1970 will show. Right, yes, because they have different database searches, right, or depending on the level of the search that you're doing, but the majority of them show after 10 years they're gone.
Maureen Farmer
Right. Right. And so we have a lot of Canadian companies and vice versa, where we're hiring, you know, U.S. employees and vice versa. So it must get very complicated going through that whole due diligence process. You know, from country to country.
Marty Britton
It does get complicated, but it's essential to know for sure that it's done. So, you know, it's absolutely very doable. And you just have to take your time and realize that certain countries are going to take time.
Maureen Farmer
Yeah, I mean, this is a tremendous risk mitigation tool and mechanism that that can help keep the organization, you know, out of the media if they're, you know...
Marty Britton
Yeah, that's just the one place you do not want your company to be is over in the media.
Maureen Farmer
...for the wrong reasons. So that brings me to my final question. I've been dying to ask it for our entire conversation. And you have this new identity verification product. I'd love to know a little bit about that before we sign off the call.
Marty Britton
Yes, absolutely. So I think, you know, this is going to be critical in terms of the hiring that we're going to be doing after this is over. Because how do you know? You know, again, it's coming back to how do you know that someone hasn't taken someone's identity? It happens all the time. It's becoming more and more common. Our son was over for dinner a couple of weeks ago, and he got a notification on his phone that his, you know credit card had been approved or whatever, and he was like, oh, what's this...must be junk? And I said, 'Oh no, no, no, it's not'. Let's jump on that right away. Our first call was to Equifax to stop it. But identity verification is very important today, especially since we're hiring globally. So, this tool that we have now, it's based on facial recognition and likeness detection. So it's really neat. So what you do is if our client checks that type of check, the candidate gets a link and they have to take a picture of their ID, the front of it, they take a picture of the ID of the back of it, and then they take a selfie. And within seconds, it literally only takes seconds to recognize it, that John Doe does belong to that IP, that that person really is a real life person. I think the identity verification as we continue to hire more remotely and we'll continue after Covid is going to really help safeguard companies...that these people are people and that they are legitimate people. And that's all based on facial recognition.
Maureen Farmer
Have you had the experience or any of your clients had the experience with where they've hired the wrong person because of Covid, because of this virtual world that we're in?
Marty Britton
Not that I'm aware of, it's still fairly new. And I don't think any of the ramifications are going to be known for a while. Yeah, it's still so new Maureen, you know, companies were kind of holding back hiring. And as Covid kind of went on, some companies have really scaled. We haven't seen anything yet. But not to say that's not going to be coming!
Maureen Farmer
Oh, I bet it will at some point.
Marty Britton
And the identity verification with the facial recognition is so important today...I think it's going to help companies feel better as they start to reopen after the pandemic and make sure that they really do have the right people in the right seats...its going to be so important. So we've done all the due diligence, we've checked all the credentials. They don't have a criminal record. But now, you know, is John Doe, John Doe. I think that's the final piece to helping us at the end of the day, sleep at night and know that we've done our due diligence.
Maureen Farmer
Oh, absolutely. Well, this has been a really wonderful conversation, Marty. And I always enjoy chatting with you. And what I'd like to know next is where can people find you and where do you typically speak? I know you do a lot of public speaking, so let's end at that point, OK?
Marty Britton
Our website, you can find us at brittonmanagement.com. My email is Marty @ Britton Management dot com. I usually speak at H.R. or recruiter related functions.
Maureen Farmer
Well, that's helpful. Marty, it's been a pleasure, as I've just said, and perhaps we can get together again at another time and talk a little bit more about your identity verification process. And, you know, once we've had a chance to see how it's working for people and how organizations are getting to use it.
Marty Britton
I would love to do that. Maureen, it's such a great technology that's coming out that's going to change our world again, just like criminal checks did after 9/11. So, as we become more accustomed to it and see the real benefits of it, I would absolutely love to just have a conversation about identity verification.
Maureen Farmer
OK, so we'll leave it there. Marty, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. As always.