As part of the hiring process, many employers conduct criminal background checks and employment verification, but these steps are only part of a successful pre-employment screening. More organizations are beginning to use third-party providers to verify college degrees and other educational credentials to confirm that an applicant is fully qualified for a given position. Verifying educational credentials prevents resume fraud and degree fraud, protects your existing employees from future workplace incidents, and reduces hiring costs resulting from turnover or onboarding investments in unqualified new hires.
In this article, we’ll explore how you can verify the college degrees and educational credentials of applicants, and outline the benefits
of bypassing a time-consuming manual process in favor of working with a third-party provider.
Manual Verification of College Degrees & Educational Credentials
When an applicant submits their resume and other credentials, some organizations simply ask the applicant to provide official transcripts from the educational institutions they’ve attended. Although this seems streamlined and transparent, this approach can lead to incidents of resume or degree fraud, whether it results from the use of a fake degree from a diploma mill, a doctored transcript, or some other misrepresentation of educational credentials.
If an employer does choose to verify one or multiple college degrees independently/in-house, the process can be quite time-consuming. It will likely include contacting the registrar of each institution, submitting applicant information, then waiting weeks or even months to receive official documents and verification from the registrar’s office(s). Verifying a GED or high-school diploma can be even more complicated, mainly because employers must write to the Department of Education in the state where the GED or diploma was conferred to receive confirmation.
Even if an employer is willing to accept the delays that could occur in verifying educational credentials in this way, other issues could arise to further complicate the process. For instance, some educational records are inaccessible digitally (requiring physical retrieval, copying, and mailing), while others can only be released through a student’s direct request. If an organization is conducting education verification in-house, it must also develop an independent process for documenting educational credential claims from the applicant, securing signed authorization from the applicant, avoiding discrimination claims, and more.
Why Use Third-Party Education Verification
Compared to the manual, in-house process we just explored, education verification through a third party is much faster, more comprehensive, and less expensive when accounting for potential hiring, onboarding, and turnover costs resulting from a mistaken hire.
With a qualified third-party provider, an applicant’s credentials (full name, claimed degree/graduation information, attendance dates, and institution names) are acquired by the provider alongside a signed authorization release. Within hours, a third-party provider can utilize access to Student Clearinghouse and other reputable databases and submit official requests to multiple institutional registrars on an organization’s behalf. This process can quickly yield verification of all of the applicant’s education credentials, or provide comprehensive information about discrepancies and falsified information.
When you use a third-party verification service, your provider should also be able to integrate education verification with the applicant’s criminal background check, employment verification, or any other screening processes you conduct – all in a single applicant tracking system that eliminates the need for redundant data entry. Determining the accuracy and veracity of an applicant’s educational history within hours can mean the difference between quickly hiring and onboarding top talent or hiring someone who could later cause a workplace incident or contribute to a negligent hiring lawsuit from an existing employee or client. Quickly verifying educational credentials through a third-party provider also spares your organization the cost and labor of investing in the onboarding and training of an employee whose lack of qualifications make them ill-suited to contribute to your organization.
Some qualified third-party providers can also help your organization quickly confirm the educational credentials of a candidate who has attended schools or universities outside of the United States. Just as the Orsus Group can complete international criminal searches and international employment verification, we also offer international education verification, which empowers your organization to quickly verify that an applicant’s claimed educational credentials are accurate and qualify them for a particular position.
Streamline and Simplify Degree Verification with The Orsus Group
A manual, in-house education verification process can not only detract from your organization’s core activities, but also cause delays that prevent you from hiring top talent or identifying resume and degree fraud as quickly as possible. Need reliable degree verification to support informed hiring? Start screening and hiring with confidence by utilizing comprehensive background check services through The Orsus Group.