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?