I’m not a placement agent however, there are many times when working with a client that part of why they are struggling is because they don’t have the proper staffing in the accounting function for either a bookkeeper, controller or CFO. Considering I am already working with the client and understand the personalities and culture as well as have the background in accounting which makes it easier for me to ask the right questions of the candidates and to know which candidates truly understand the language of accounting, I will at times help my client do the hiring.
About a month ago, one of my clients asked for help to hire a Controller to be placed in their Niagara Falls office. The process that I follow is simple enough. Work with the client to create a job description, place the job description on various sites like Indeed or Ziprecruiter, review all of the resumes that come in, separate the good resumes (hopefully there are at least 3 -4 remaining), set up phone interviews for the 3-4 applicants, perform the phone interview and invite the applicants to the clients office for a face to face interview with the owner.
For candidates who pass the face to face interview, I request and check three professional references and if they pass the reference check, I invite for a second interview to have them interview with some of the executive staff and employees they will be working with. Hopefully after that, there’s still one candidate remaining and we make an offer.
When I was performing this process for the client, I came across an applicant who looked like a great fit. I felt even more excited about this applicant after the phone interview because that’s when I spend a considerable amount of time asking the candidate many detailed accounting questions to make sure they understand the language of accounting and this candidate passed the test.
The face to face first interview with the client went so well that the owner decided he will offer more than we advertised for the salary range to make sure he would be making an offer that the candidate would not refuse. The owner also made it clear to me to make sure I check the references and set the second interview as quickly as possible considering candidates like this in today’s market, don’t last long before they find a job.
The following day, I checked the professional references and they came back glowing, so much so, I called the candidate immediately to set up the second interview for later in the week.
One of the final steps I perform, considering it takes very little time and no cost is to check social media sites and google the candidates name. This candidate had an uncommon name so when I googled it, the first thought that came to my mind as I read the first headline was “Wow, there’s another person with the exact same name who just recently pled guilty for stealing $47,000.” Fortunately for me, there was a news clip associated with it so I watched it in shock (and disappointment) as I discovered it was our candidate!
This interview happened in January and the news clip mentioned that this persons sentencing date was set for mid February. I thought that was kind of funny considering as one of my parting questions in the first interview was “if we were to hire you when could you start?” His answer was he could start in mid February after he took care of some personal issues. Apparently the personal issues were the possibility of receiving a sentence which included jail time. It’s boggles my mind that he was interviewing for a job when he still may end up going to jail.
After getting over the initial shock, I realized I now need to call this candidate back and cancel the second interview that I just set.
I called and said, “I just googled your name and noticed you were recently in the news.” There was a long silence and then he said, “I was going to tell you but didn’t think it was necessary unless you reached the point where you made an offer.” I said to him, “you should lead with that because you’re wasting everyone’s time.”
I understand why this candidate didn’t want to share this - there’s not a business owner out there that is interested in hiring a person (especially to manage their money) if they were caught stealing. My client included.
The moral of the story - be sure to check all of the major social network sites and google the name of the applicant as part of your hiring process. Most of the time, it will come up clean, however once in while, you just might find that your applicant isn't who they claim they are.