Yes, the proper definition of “old school” generally refers to ideas or styles that are traditional, conservative, or characteristic of an earlier era. Here at GroupOne Background Screening, we believe “old school” could also be defined as “reckless.”
Specifically, we were hired by an HR director to run a background check on a certain employee. It amazes us that many HR Directors are hesitant to run background or reference checks because they believe it to be costly, or they were so impressed during the job interview that a check would be unnecessary. One HR director thought he was such a good judge of character he could tell whether a candidate would be a good fit based solely on a resume and face-to-face interview.
The company needed to hire someone to handle their national expansion. This specific hiring decision was based solely on the candidate’s impressive interviewing skills and resume. He had the gift of gab and a great smile, and so the HR director was sold.
Unfortunately, after a few months on the job the HR director received numerous complaints the new employee wasn’t getting the job done. That’s when GroupOne was called in. We were asked to check his background and references. We discovered the reason he wasn’t getting the job done was because he lied multiple times on his resume. In fact, he had never before done the type of work he was hired to do. So much for intuition!
The cost to the company for not checking his references turned out to be $200,000. Now that’s costly. If a background and reference check had been done on this individual before he was hired, the cost would have been less than $500. We would all like to believe we are excellent judges of character. In this case, it led to a poor hiring decision.
What many HR directors should realize is that there are many job candidates who are attractive and bubbly and who interview extremely well. That’s great, but can they do the job? On the flipside, there are many great employees who do not interview well. Should you rely on intuition? This is why a careful background and reference check is so important. There’s nothing the matter with old school, but it could be costly to your company.