To clear up some of the confusion, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has published answers to a few of HR’s most common questions about federal contractors and E-Verify:

1. Who’s affected by the rule?

Companies will be required to use E-Verify when they enter into federal contracts with a performance period longer than 120 days and a value of more than $100,000. Also, subcontractors are covered by the rule when the prime contract meets the above requirements and the subcontract is for services or construction with a value over $3,000.

2. Which employees must be verified?

Covered contractors are required to verify all new hires, as well as any existing employees assigned to the government contract. That includes employees who perform “substantial duties” under the contract, as opposed to those performing overhead or support work.

3. When do we have to enroll?

The rule went into effect on September 8. Any applicable federal contract signed after that date must include an “E-Verify clause” that requires contractors to use the system.

Companies not already signed up for E-Verify have to enroll within 30 days after they’re awarded a contract with that clause, and they must begin verifying new hires and current employees working on the contract within 90 days.

However, all companies can sign up for E-Verify whenever they want, so current or prospective federal contractors might as well enroll before they’re required to.

4. What if we already have a government contract?

You won’t be required to sign up for E-Verify until you sign a new contract that contains the E-Verify clause.

For more information from USCIS, click here.

Candidates are often more honest in their LinkedIn profiles than in the resumes they send employers.

At least that’s what LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman said at the recent Social Recruiting Summit held at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, CA.

The reasoning: Resumes are read only by a few people in a company who know nothing about the candidate. On the other hand, candidates might have hundreds of LinkedIn connections, and in theory, know or have worked with all of them.

Reid’s point: It’s hard to lie publicly in front of current or former colleagues.

Of course, LinkedIn profiles aren’t really replacements for resumes — most users don’t put the same detail into a profile, and there aren’t many versions tailored to different types of positions.

But some experts recommend finding a candidate’s profile to quickly make sure there aren’t glaring discrepancies in the info you received.

If there’s a type of job you’d think would automatically require a background check, it’s those that involve contact with children or the elderly. In fact, background checks for those positions are required by law in some states.

Not in Virginia, though, and the Cote De Neige Home for Adults in Newport News didn’t run checks for prospective nursing assistants.

The end result: The home hired Junious Boyd Batte, a convicted felon with a long criminal history including assault and battery.

Of course, without checking, the home didn’t know about the new employee’s past — until it came out that he’d sexually assaulted a resident.

The patient took the home to court for “negligent hiring.” The company was forced to pat $750,000 in damages.

To apply to work for the city of Bozeman, Montana, candidates are asked to list “any and all” Web sites, chat rooms and social networking groups they belong to (“including but not limited to Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.”) — along with their usernames and passwords.

Many hiring managers Google applicants’ names or look for them on Facebook, but actually wanting to log in to their personal profiles is something new entirely.

Why does the city want that access? According to city attorney Greg Sullivan, it’s “to make sure the people that we hire have the highest moral character and are a good fit for the city,” The Consumerist reports.

Sullivan also said the city doesn’t look at “the things that the federal Constitution lists as protected things” (whatever that means).

The story has drawn a lot of attention, especially considering there’s a debate going on about whether hiring managers should even look at candidates’ profiles, let alone obtain log-in information.

Do you think any employer has the right to ask for usernames and passwords from applicants? Should social networking profiles play any role in the background check process at all?

Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

On one hand, most companies will find it hard to trust someone who’s been convicted of any crime. But if someone has the right skills and experience, should a non-job-related offense from several years prior change your mind?

The EEOC warns against using blanket policies against hiring candidates with criminal records, because minorities are convicted of crimes at higher rates than whites.

So what’s the middle ground? A new study by Carnegie Melon says convictions that are at least five years old pose little threat in most cases.

The study looked at the records of more than 88,000 convicts in New York who committed first-time offenses in 1980. Most committed new crimes within the first five years after their arrest. But those who stayed clean for five years had the same risk of arrest as the general population in the same age group.

That’s not to say once five years pass, you should ignore conviction information. But the study’s data, along with a case-specific analysis of the severity of an offense and how it relates to the job, could help companies answer a tough question.

A woman was recently arrested for stealing from her employer — and using the money to pay back an employer she’d stolen from previously.

Got that? Here are the details:

Kathy Foer-Morse worked as a paralegal for a law firm in Norristown, Pennsylvania. She was recently fired, arrested and charged with stealing $100,937 from the firm. Allegedly, she’d been writing herself fraudulent checks from estate accounts the firm managed, the Pottstown Mercury reports.

Police said Foer-Morse was sending the money to her previous employer, a law firm in New York City. She owed them restitution after she was caught stealing $285,000 while she worked there.

No word on whether the firm knew about her past when it hired her, but we’re guessing she found a way to hide it from them.

While driving a company vehicle, an employee started a confrontation with a pedestrian. The incident culminated in the driver leaving the truck, following the pedestrian into a restaurant and punching him in the face.

The victim notified the company about the assault and the employee was fired. But that apparently wasn’t enough — the victim sued the employer, claiming the company was at fault for hiring and retaining the attacker.

His argument: The company hired the employee despite being aware of his criminal record — which contained a conviction for illegal drug possession from five years prior, as well as speeding citations.

The company countered that nothing in the employee’s background indicated he would violently attack a stranger while on duty. Likewise, during his job tenure, he’d never done anything to indicate he was a threat (his personnel file was clean, except for some attendance issues).

Who won the case?

The court ruled in favor of the company. The incident was unfortunate, but the company couldn’t have foreseen it. The employee’s background check contained nothing that was related to the assault incident.

The lesson: Negligent hiring cases can hurt companies when background checks are sloppily conducted, or the results are ignored. But in this case, the company performed the check properly and, like most reasonable employers would have, saw no reason to think the employee was a threat.

Cite: Cartlidge v. Verizon New Jersey, Inc.

Probably not, experts say.

The automated Telephone Number Employer Verification (TEVN) system is set to be available in late September, replacing the current operator-assisted hotline.

TEVN will allow employers to verify up to 10 names and SSNs at a time without having to wait to get an agent on the phone.

It’s definitely an improvement over the hotline, but there’s already a system available that lets employers verify more numbers in less time. The online Social Security Number Verification Service (SSNVS) lets employers:

• verify up to 10 names and SSNs with immediate results, and
• upload files of up to 250,000 names and numbers and get results the next business day.

Plus, both SSNVS and TEVN require you to register with SSA’s Business Services Online. So once that’s done, most employers will have little reason to get on the phone.

Though most candidates give honest interviews, there are always a few who invent or exaggerate achievements, skills, previous jobs, etc. Here’s how you and your managers can tell when someone’s lying.

There are several non-verbal signals people typically display when they’re telling a lie. These are some of the most common ones you and your managers should watch for during interviews, according to Wayne D. Ford, author of How to Spot a Liar in a Job Interview:

1. Touching the face — for example, scratching the nose or covering the lips or chin
2. Avoiding eye contact, (or, in some cases, looking the listener directly into the eyes for a long time because they’re trying to control eye movement, knowing it’s a giveaway)
3. Sitting farther away from the interviewer than the interviewer intended
4. Using a tone of voice that’s inconsistent with body language
5. Putting a briefcase or other object in the lap
6. Playing with objects (e.g., a pen or coffee mug) or placing them between themselves and the interviewer
7. Using the exact words of the question when formulating an answer
8. Looking down before or while answering a question
9. Using only the mouth when making facial expressions — for example, a natural smile will utilize muscles in the entire face, whereas a liar will only make select movements.

Of course, spotting a liar isn’t an exact science. A perfectly honest person could display any of those signs for a number of reasons — for example, the interviewee may just be nervous.

But they could give you or a manager an indication that more probing questions need to be asked, or tell you what you’ll want to ask about when you check references.

As the job market remains tough, more employers will start seeing candidates who have spent significant amounts of time out of work. But how long is too long?

A recent Robert Half survey asked 150 executives how long a manager could stay unemployed in this economy before his or her career was negatively affected. The average response: nine months.

Different experts have different recommendations for how companies should view those gaps. Some say its no big deal, while other say companies should be concerned about the applicant’s skills and work ethic. Of course, a lot of it depends on the reasons the candidate gives for the gap.

What do you think? Would you be concerned about hiring someone who hasn’t worked in several months? What would you ask in the interview to find out whether a resume gap means anything?

Let us know in the comments section below.