June 7, 2004
Screening room | A Portland entrepreneur hopes to create a market for independent pre-employment screening
By Rebecca Zicarelli
Steve Bailey wants to change the way companies hire people by eliminating their need to perform background checks on job applicants. His company, Professional Assertion Services, launched in November 2002, will certify people, essentially creating a seal of approval that a person can put on a job, rental or credit application to indicate that the information they've provided is, indeed, correct. "It's a way [for applicants] to communicate something about themselves without having to give away, and lose control of, personal information," Bailey says.
The idea is simple. If you sign up for Bailey's services, typically costing between $75 and $400 depending on the level of scrutiny requested, one of Bailey's independent licensed private investigators will perform a background check on you, investigating your driving, criminal, credit and employment histories, as well as documenting your education and verifying your Social Security number.
According to Bailey, companies that do background checks on potential employees tend to rely on public records databases for their information. But the accuracy of the facts in those databases is rarely verified and, he says, they're frequently wrong. His service is an attempt to beef up the results of those database searches by verifying the information using audit-like standards. If you pass the auditing process you can use the phrase "PAS certified" on your resume and other application materials. Then, a potential employer, creditor or landlord can log on to Bailey's website, www.pascert.com, and check your certification instead of performing a background check of her own. If you don't pass the audit and verification process, PAS won't certify you.
Bailey says he's ready to take the idea of personal certification to the workplace and beyond, beginning with pre-employment screening. But he doesn't have any clients or any revenue. Right now, he's caught in a chicken and egg scenario: His clients, job seekers, aren't likely to pay him for his services unless there's a demand among employers. And employers aren't likely to demand certified applicants if a pool of certified people doesn't exist.
Bailey's quest to break out of that dilemma led him to Mary Ann Benson, assistant director of career services and professional life development at the University of Southern Maine in Portland. While none of the USM students she presented the idea to opted to go through certification earlier this year, Benson sees potential for PAS. "He may be ahead of his time," she says of Bailey. "If Steve can make inroads, he'll change the way business is done."
But even Bailey's not sure if the business world is ready for him. "To change the way people do business is far more difficult than I originally envisioned," he says.
Replacing the gumshoe
Gary Thornton, president of Thornton Associates, a human resources firm in Scarborough, and president of the Human Resources Association of Southern Maine, says most companies in Maine large enough to have an HR staff will perform their own screenings, typically checking with the local sheriff's office and the Registry of Motor Vehicles. He says the habit of conducting background checks is well worth adopting. "If [companies] don't, it's a time bomb waiting to explode," he says.
For employers, though, background checks present a number of problems. They must comply with state and federal laws, and protect any records they receive as result of a check. And it costs time and money to answer crucial questions: Does the applicant have the education and work experience she claims? Is he trustworthy?
Sorting out the axe murderers from the regular Joes is tricky business. And, as Bailey says, "The days of going to your local gumshoe to do this kind of screening don't exist anymore." Instead, pre-employment screening is typically performed by HR staffers or outsourced to a technology company such as Choice Point, an Atlanta-based company that performs background checks based on searches of those flawed public-records databases. (See "The long life of bad data," below.)
But in Thornton's opinion, such checks typically are ineffective. "You can't help but wonder how real, how authentic, the data you're getting back is," he says. "And the candidate doesn't know what's there and if it's wrong."
Bailey says PAS would solve these problems in a number of ways, not least of which is removing the burden of pre-employment screening from a company's HR staff. PAS would verify the information the check brings to light, act as the repository for personal records, protect private information about applicants and offer a certificate of approval instead of divulging personal information. "A key element of this is that if the applicant makes omissions in their personal record or tells falsehoods, they don't get certified and they don't get their money back," he says. "It puts them at risk. It's 180 degrees from the risk model now, where the employer holds all the risk."
Bailey has a background in both law enforcement ˆ for the U.S. Air Force and the Westbrook Police Department ˆ and auditing ˆ he's got a degree in accounting and worked as an auditor for Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers). What he calls his "unique blend" of job experience led him to launch Personal Assertion Services a year-and-a-half ago with $50,000 of his own money and three sweat-equity partners, two with backgrounds in information technology and one in private investigating. Together, he says, the four have developed the software that makes PAS possible, the standards that make it credible and the network of licensed investigators that will make it happen.
PAS offers five levels of screening. The simplest and least expensive, called a Level 5 Certification, would verify if the applicant has the right to operate a motor vehicle, verify his Social Security number and address, identify any warrants or other outstanding legal actions against him, check if he's allowed to work in the United States and determine if he's delinquent in child support. A Level 1 certification would go much further, including complete driving history, state and federal criminal history, sex-offender check, documentation of federal tax liens, bankruptcy filings and civil litigation, personal financial history, a search for published stories in the media, a polygraph exam and interviews with business associates and partners.
Peter Jacobs, an employment attorney with Pierce Atwood in Portland, is intrigued by the concept, but he cautions that one of Bailey's biggest obstacles is likely to be his lack of an established reputation. "So much depends on the reputation and reliability of the certifying source," Jacobs says. "If it were Dun & Bradstreet, he'd have credibility already going."
The location problem
Janet Etzel, managing director and career counselor with Promising Futures, an employment and recruiting agency in Falmouth, says her firm is interested in partnering with Bailey. Promising Futures' services include what Etzel says are innovative assessments that help job seekers identify their most important qualities and skills. She says PAS certification offers another piece of the puzzle, demonstrating that a person who's got the right skills also has a documented history to assure potential employers they're a safe bet. "It will reduce turnover, training and risk," Etzel says of PAS certification. "It's about attitude and integrity."
Etzel says she's introduced the idea to a number of clients, and a few currently are going through certification as test cases, a crucial step for Bailey as he fine-tunes operations and his customer service model. (By press time, test certifications hadn't progressed far enough for Bailey or his test clients to offer feedback on the process.)
Etzel fears that PAS is going to be a hard sell to human-resources managers. "Here's a new way to do things, and companies don't like change," she says.
If Cindy Hamilton, executive vice president of human resources with Portland-based Banknorth Group, is any indication, Etzel may be right. Hamilton immediately saw three potential problems that she felt would prevent PAS certification from being commonly used: "The certification is only as good as the time frame that was looked at," she says. "Most of the people who are unemployed may not have the money to fund something that is currently funded by [potential] employers, so I can't see this being widely accepted. Banknorth is often looking at candidates, recruiting candidates, who are not conducting a job search. These people wouldn't be prepared in advance for certification."
Bailey says he faces another obstacle in his location. "Here in Maine, we're trusting; we tend to take people at face value. I need a company like Citigroup, where for one position they'll get 1,500 applicants." Given Maine's smaller companies and trusting employers, Bailey says he hopes to test PAS and build brand recognition by certifying professionals such as financial managers, homebuilders and accountants.
Marc Poulin, a partner in Poulin Financial LLC of Portland, is considering a PAS certification for himself and his staff as a way of standing out in the crowd of financial advisors. "With the payroll debauchery of a year ago and four to five years ago, it taints anybody in the financial services industry," he says. "Somebody evaluating our company compared to another would see what [PAS] certification represents. [Bailey is] creating a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for individuals."
Bailey's currently looking for equity investors and the opportunity to bring PAS to companies in southern New Hampshire and Massachusetts, where there are larger employers with greater screening needs. Within the first year the certification program is up and running ˆ Bailey hopes that will happen later this year ˆ he projects he'll generate $400,000 in sales, growing to $50 million within five years, assuming his market expands to encompass all of New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He says his five-year measure of success will be seeing help-wanted ads with "PAS certification preferred" on them.
But the long-term goal goes beyond human resources, extending to credit checks, airport security, dating services ˆ anywhere an individual's integrity is important. "On the Saturday night before Super Bowl Sunday, if someone's TV breaks down, I want them to be able to go to Best Buy, present their PAS certification, and the store [would have] a policy that would give [certified customers] an automatic $1,500 credit limit," he says. "They wouldn't need any more information than that certification."
The idea is simple. If you sign up for Bailey's services, typically costing between $75 and $400 depending on the level of scrutiny requested, one of Bailey's independent licensed private investigators will perform a background check on you, investigating your driving, criminal, credit and employment histories, as well as documenting your education and verifying your Social Security number.
According to Bailey, companies that do background checks on potential employees tend to rely on public records databases for their information. But the accuracy of the facts in those databases is rarely verified and, he says, they're frequently wrong. His service is an attempt to beef up the results of those database searches by verifying the information using audit-like standards. If you pass the auditing process you can use the phrase "PAS certified" on your resume and other application materials. Then, a potential employer, creditor or landlord can log on to Bailey's website, www.pascert.com, and check your certification instead of performing a background check of her own. If you don't pass the audit and verification process, PAS won't certify you.
Bailey says he's ready to take the idea of personal certification to the workplace and beyond, beginning with pre-employment screening. But he doesn't have any clients or any revenue. Right now, he's caught in a chicken and egg scenario: His clients, job seekers, aren't likely to pay him for his services unless there's a demand among employers. And employers aren't likely to demand certified applicants if a pool of certified people doesn't exist.
Bailey's quest to break out of that dilemma led him to Mary Ann Benson, assistant director of career services and professional life development at the University of Southern Maine in Portland. While none of the USM students she presented the idea to opted to go through certification earlier this year, Benson sees potential for PAS. "He may be ahead of his time," she says of Bailey. "If Steve can make inroads, he'll change the way business is done."
But even Bailey's not sure if the business world is ready for him. "To change the way people do business is far more difficult than I originally envisioned," he says.
Replacing the gumshoe
Gary Thornton, president of Thornton Associates, a human resources firm in Scarborough, and president of the Human Resources Association of Southern Maine, says most companies in Maine large enough to have an HR staff will perform their own screenings, typically checking with the local sheriff's office and the Registry of Motor Vehicles. He says the habit of conducting background checks is well worth adopting. "If [companies] don't, it's a time bomb waiting to explode," he says.
For employers, though, background checks present a number of problems. They must comply with state and federal laws, and protect any records they receive as result of a check. And it costs time and money to answer crucial questions: Does the applicant have the education and work experience she claims? Is he trustworthy?
Sorting out the axe murderers from the regular Joes is tricky business. And, as Bailey says, "The days of going to your local gumshoe to do this kind of screening don't exist anymore." Instead, pre-employment screening is typically performed by HR staffers or outsourced to a technology company such as Choice Point, an Atlanta-based company that performs background checks based on searches of those flawed public-records databases. (See "The long life of bad data," below.)
But in Thornton's opinion, such checks typically are ineffective. "You can't help but wonder how real, how authentic, the data you're getting back is," he says. "And the candidate doesn't know what's there and if it's wrong."
Bailey says PAS would solve these problems in a number of ways, not least of which is removing the burden of pre-employment screening from a company's HR staff. PAS would verify the information the check brings to light, act as the repository for personal records, protect private information about applicants and offer a certificate of approval instead of divulging personal information. "A key element of this is that if the applicant makes omissions in their personal record or tells falsehoods, they don't get certified and they don't get their money back," he says. "It puts them at risk. It's 180 degrees from the risk model now, where the employer holds all the risk."
Bailey has a background in both law enforcement ˆ for the U.S. Air Force and the Westbrook Police Department ˆ and auditing ˆ he's got a degree in accounting and worked as an auditor for Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers). What he calls his "unique blend" of job experience led him to launch Personal Assertion Services a year-and-a-half ago with $50,000 of his own money and three sweat-equity partners, two with backgrounds in information technology and one in private investigating. Together, he says, the four have developed the software that makes PAS possible, the standards that make it credible and the network of licensed investigators that will make it happen.
PAS offers five levels of screening. The simplest and least expensive, called a Level 5 Certification, would verify if the applicant has the right to operate a motor vehicle, verify his Social Security number and address, identify any warrants or other outstanding legal actions against him, check if he's allowed to work in the United States and determine if he's delinquent in child support. A Level 1 certification would go much further, including complete driving history, state and federal criminal history, sex-offender check, documentation of federal tax liens, bankruptcy filings and civil litigation, personal financial history, a search for published stories in the media, a polygraph exam and interviews with business associates and partners.
Peter Jacobs, an employment attorney with Pierce Atwood in Portland, is intrigued by the concept, but he cautions that one of Bailey's biggest obstacles is likely to be his lack of an established reputation. "So much depends on the reputation and reliability of the certifying source," Jacobs says. "If it were Dun & Bradstreet, he'd have credibility already going."
The location problem
Janet Etzel, managing director and career counselor with Promising Futures, an employment and recruiting agency in Falmouth, says her firm is interested in partnering with Bailey. Promising Futures' services include what Etzel says are innovative assessments that help job seekers identify their most important qualities and skills. She says PAS certification offers another piece of the puzzle, demonstrating that a person who's got the right skills also has a documented history to assure potential employers they're a safe bet. "It will reduce turnover, training and risk," Etzel says of PAS certification. "It's about attitude and integrity."
Etzel says she's introduced the idea to a number of clients, and a few currently are going through certification as test cases, a crucial step for Bailey as he fine-tunes operations and his customer service model. (By press time, test certifications hadn't progressed far enough for Bailey or his test clients to offer feedback on the process.)
Etzel fears that PAS is going to be a hard sell to human-resources managers. "Here's a new way to do things, and companies don't like change," she says.
If Cindy Hamilton, executive vice president of human resources with Portland-based Banknorth Group, is any indication, Etzel may be right. Hamilton immediately saw three potential problems that she felt would prevent PAS certification from being commonly used: "The certification is only as good as the time frame that was looked at," she says. "Most of the people who are unemployed may not have the money to fund something that is currently funded by [potential] employers, so I can't see this being widely accepted. Banknorth is often looking at candidates, recruiting candidates, who are not conducting a job search. These people wouldn't be prepared in advance for certification."
Bailey says he faces another obstacle in his location. "Here in Maine, we're trusting; we tend to take people at face value. I need a company like Citigroup, where for one position they'll get 1,500 applicants." Given Maine's smaller companies and trusting employers, Bailey says he hopes to test PAS and build brand recognition by certifying professionals such as financial managers, homebuilders and accountants.
Marc Poulin, a partner in Poulin Financial LLC of Portland, is considering a PAS certification for himself and his staff as a way of standing out in the crowd of financial advisors. "With the payroll debauchery of a year ago and four to five years ago, it taints anybody in the financial services industry," he says. "Somebody evaluating our company compared to another would see what [PAS] certification represents. [Bailey is] creating a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for individuals."
Bailey's currently looking for equity investors and the opportunity to bring PAS to companies in southern New Hampshire and Massachusetts, where there are larger employers with greater screening needs. Within the first year the certification program is up and running ˆ Bailey hopes that will happen later this year ˆ he projects he'll generate $400,000 in sales, growing to $50 million within five years, assuming his market expands to encompass all of New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He says his five-year measure of success will be seeing help-wanted ads with "PAS certification preferred" on them.
But the long-term goal goes beyond human resources, extending to credit checks, airport security, dating services ˆ anywhere an individual's integrity is important. "On the Saturday night before Super Bowl Sunday, if someone's TV breaks down, I want them to be able to go to Best Buy, present their PAS certification, and the store [would have] a policy that would give [certified customers] an automatic $1,500 credit limit," he says. "They wouldn't need any more information than that certification."
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