Serious question about background investigations.

[OddArt]

This question is no joke. I really want to know the answer.

I often hear the phrase "don't lie in the BI because they will find out". I'm not going to lie because I want to get this job honestly, but how do they catch liars? For example, Philly doesn't use the poly anymore so how would they know you smoked marijuana 5 years ago (I didn't)?

I'm not asking for the BI secrets but I think it's amazing that a large percentage of liars are caught either very early or sometime later in the process.

[hokiepokie]

probably because they ask your sister who your friends were in high school. then when they contact your friends in high school they ask for acquantances they may have met you or something like that. when they start talking to this many people cr*p should come out if there is any. i'd assume that is how it is anyway.

[bushido71]

that's pretty much it, i would imagine. they ask for so much comprehensive information that enough digging and cross-referencing will eventually dig something up. and when they find a discrepancy then they likely assume you were trying to hide something.

[gdowkpc]

If anyone saw you do it, or heard you did it, they will know about it. People talk. And while those you trust may not betray you to a BI, they may have told someone else who would.

[gijoeyl33]

in all honest there are probably plenty of people in civil service LEO jobs that slipped through the cracks of the BI investigator, regardless of what the retarded poly says. no matter how hard you try, and how much dirt you dig up, nothing is going to be 100%

[Group9]

The main theory of a serious background investigation, like for instance, to get a federal security classification, is the developed reference. That is, people who know you, whom you did not list as a reference. There are techniques to find these people. You then interview them about the applicant. It is almost impossible to beat this if a competent investigator is conducting the background the way it is supposed to be done.

Unfortunately, many departments don't have the resources to conduct this type of investigation. The OPM budgets several thousand dollars for federal background investigations, depending on the security clearance needed.

When I was conducting backgrounds for my federal agency, during a period when we did them ourselves rather than contracting with OPM, I was amazed at the things that listed references would tell me about the applicants. Many would even tell me that the applicant had asked them to lie and then tell me what the applicant asked them to lie about.

I guess you have to really like somebody to risk going to jail for them just so they can get a job.

[deputydawg]

There are techniques to find these people.

you have my attention. what are some of these techniques?

and to play devils advocate there were a few troubled kids in high school who thought i did drugs. obviously i did not. are you asking people like this? or just neighbors and co workers?

[Group9]

you have my attention. what are some of these techniques?

and to play devils advocate there were a few troubled kids in high school who thought i did drugs. obviously i did not. are you asking people like this? or just neighbors and co workers?

There are a lot of different ways. There are commercial data mining companies that can list every neighbor you ever had and every address you ever lived at. You can usually get dozens if not hundreds of leads using one. You can use an applicant's social security number to find out every place he ever worked and paid SS. You can then do a reverse check and get the names of other person who worked at the place at the same time. Many states have the same database for unemployment insurance. You can pull power records. You can ask for other persons' names who had driver's licenses at the same address as the applicant in the same time frame. You can pull accident records and get the name of persons who were in the car with someone if and when they had a wreck.

And of course, you have to corroborate negative information. You would never accept one person saying anything as the truth. But, that is like any criminal investigation. A good background is conducted the same way.

Not every background gets a full court press the same way not every criminal investigation gets one. Sometimes, it just isn't necessary. But, when warning flags would start to go up, my agency would make you press on until you had resolved them one way or the other.

I had one I spent almost a month on and finally uncovered a marriage that the applicant had left out and thought we would never find out about because it had happened so long before. When I finally located it and got the divorce file, there were serious allegations of physical abuse, and incredibly, an agreement in the file for the applicant to pay money to his ex-spouse in return for her giving him a good recomendation if a background investigator ever found her.

His reply when I showed him the file: "I didn't think you would find out about her. Is this going to hurt my chances of being hired?"

Anybody can beat a poor background investigation. Almost no one will beat a good one.

[deputydawg]

thats a classic example thanks.

[bhanson]

This question is no joke. I really want to know the answer.
I'm not asking for the BI secrets but I think it's amazing that a large percentage of liars are caught either very early or sometime later in the process.

A good background investigation finds information YOU have probably forgotten. The sad fact is, most applicants I rejected for lying were caught by the simple process of checking the information THEY supplied on their application/backgound history form. I am NOT talking simple errors like wrong dates of employment or when they lived at what address.

I mean falsified work history, education etc.

I guess they think we don't check those things, like most civilian employers???