While education had the lowest, the construction, automotive and retail industry segments had the highest criminal record hit ratios in 2007, reveals a new employment screening report whose research finds that convictions stemming from employment screening between the years 2005 and 2007 grew by 17.6%: from 8.5 % in 2005 to 9.1% in 2006 and 9.5% in 2007.

Compared to 2006, upward movement continued for a number of trends in 2007, according to the annual Hit Ratio Report, a survey of industry-specific hit ratios for 13 industries, from Kroll:

• Food services criminal red flags grew from 12.1% to 13.4%
• Manufacturing criminal red flags grew from 11.6% in 2006 to 12.6% in 2007
• Employers are conducting more thorough, multi-jurisdictional background checks on the individuals they hire
• Employers are screening a greater population of their staff, as well as temporary employees, vendors, and consultants

Additionally, applicants in 2007 to financial institutions and healthcare entities had criminal record hit ratios of 11.7% and 16.8%, the survey indicates. According to the Kroll data, there was also a continued trend in the number of qualifications that could not be verified, as well as discrepancies from what applicants stated before being hired, also rose, the data shows.

Among healthcare applicants in the data set, more than 50% had employment histories that could not be verified or that had a material difference in what the applicant stated vs. what the former employer reported. The same indicator was more than 44% for the financial services industry. Furthermore, the number of discrepancies for professional license verifications among financial services applicants was 40.3%.

Article courtesy of Kennedy Information Recruiting Trends providing leading edge insights and strategies for the recruiting professional