Quality v. Quantity
By Patrick K. Collard – Managing Member & Corporate Investigator
1-888-GOBACK-1 ext. 83 | patrickc@GObackgrounds.com
I was having dinner on Saturday (08/23/09) with Scott Vanek of SJV Associates. He was in Southern California visiting clients and I was on his whistle stop tour. Over the course of dinner we discussed the quality versus quantity issue when it comes to an investigative boutique firm like GObackgrounds.com and the high-flying information brokers. Scott’s firm handles all of GObackgrounds.com’s County Criminal and County Civil searches throughout the U.S. We went exclusively with SJV Associates a couple of years ago because it was more efficient for us and our clients, and secondly they are the only county court house research firm in the U.S. that is ISO 9001:2008 Certified with a 99.9% rate of accuracy. That’s exactly the type of quality GObackgrounds.com requires for its background checks. Thus installing SJV as an exclusive vendor for these search types was a no brainer.
Over the last 18-years in business I’ve seen a lot of high flying information brokers come and go. I certainly don’t begrudge our non-investigative competitors their copious amount of background checks. Clearly there is enough business out there even in this challenging economy. As a corporate investigation firm, we use our special skills to monitor and investigate our competitor’s activity. I’m always amazed at the numbers they espouse on their websites. “We conduct 25,000 background checks a month” their website says proudly. Taking this into account, and keeping in mind what Scott said, all I kept asking myself was, how do these companies do it? I mean, from a Quality Assurance standpoint how do you begin to manage 25,000 background checks a month? Think about it, a background check company is a Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA). A CRA is obligated under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to filter its findings to the client. As an example, clients are not allowed to see dismissed cases or in some states arrest records when rendering a decision to hire an applicant. Can you have a computer do this? Yes, but can you program the computer to determine if a criminal record is germane to the position the applicant is seeking? Or better yet, put the applicant’s unimpressive credit history into context with a recent divorce, job loss or medical issue? Not a chance, unless these companies have invented Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the background check industry.
Here’s the scary part, statistically speaking, the screening industry reports a criminal “hit” rate of 10%. This “hit” rate is for applicant’s that have signed a release and authorized a background check to be conducted. Granted the “hit” percentage of 10% may include minor criminal offenses or offenses that may have been detailed in the application, but nevertheless 10% is the industry standard.
So how does our high-flying background check company manage to implement a Quality Assurance strategy for the 2,500 background checks that must be reviewed and sent to the client within 24-48 hours? It simply can’t be done. As an 18-year veteran investigator it takes me on average 15 minutes to analyze and render a recommendation. That’s assuming I have all the necessary information at my fingertips, i.e. dates, charges, pleas, final disposition, etc. At 15 minutes per background check it would take one person working 24/7 an astounding 26 days straight to analyze and render a competent decision. Better yet, a team of 15 people working a 40 hour work week 7 days to complete this task. Or even better still, a team of 30 people working a 40 hour work week 3.5 days to complete this task. Of course, not every person would have the same level of acumen and experience.
On the GObackgrounds.com’s website you’ll never find us touting how many background checks we do in a month, because it really doesn’t matter to us. We will always remain a quality first company.
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