Tag: HR

Employment Background Screening

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About fifty years back, hiring a person was a simple process. All you had to do after receiving the application was a quick cross reference with previous employers and hire the person. In many cases, even that was not done; people were hired simply because a neighbor or a friend had something good to say about them. Hiring was a matter of gut instinct.

Not any longer. Today, this casual attitude towards hiring your employees could cost you billions of dollars in lost lawsuits.

A security agency had to pay $3 million after their guard had stolen from a client. Subsequent checks revealed that the employee had a colorful criminal record. ?A sales firm had to pay $175,000 in negligent hiring lawsuits when its sales representative was caught forging signatures.

Many companies have lost millions of dollars in negligent hiring lawsuits because they did not uncover vital information through employment background screening.

The Society for Human Resource Management says that 95% of HR professionals in charge of hiring employees conduct employment background screening before they hire. This is a whopping 35% increase from the 60% who used to screen employees in the 1990s. There seems to be a reason for this sudden jump: more than 40% of job applications submitted in the US contain false or fabricated data. More than 9% of the employees who have agreed to get their backgrounds checked are hiding criminal histories. Thus, it is obvious that hiring is contingent on successful employment background screening.

A thorough employment background screening exposes information that was intentionally withheld or mistakenly omitted. Often, employees embellish the truth, particularly when it comes to educational qualification, expertise or experience. Such hidden information may have serious repercussions if it is discovered in a tricky situation. Needless to say, access to such data will stop you from hiring antisocial elements.

Employment background screening consists of a number of checks: background checks, drug tests and psychometric testing. This helps employers ascertain claims regarding qualification, education, previous employment and criminal history. It also helps them uncover any blemished in the person’s character.

Background searching services are offered by a large number of online services and private investigators. When choosing the right company, select a company that has access to a wide network of information. Most screening companies retrieve data from a common pool of data stored with government agencies. They then dig further for criminal history, credit data, sexual offense registration information and other sensitive material. All the data collected on the potential employee is then compiled into a single background check report. The company you employ must be able to give you quick results, because you obviously don’t want to lose a good employee to your competition.

Whether you conduct an in-house background screening or employ the services of a background screening company, it is necessary to go through the claims of your potential employee with a fine-toothed comb. Companies that fail to perform their due diligence before hiring may have to close shop if the worst happens.

Hiring A Professional Pre Employment Background Screening Company – Advantages For Human Resource

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With increasing competition in job market, there is also an increase of fake credentials and forge documents provided by the candidates to get a higher position. These types of candidates not only deprive of the right of other candidate who have the original credentials, but also dangerous for the company itself. Therefore, the importance of pre employment background screening has been increasing with every single day.

Background screening of an employee is primarily a work of Human Resource department of a company. But most of the companies hire professional background screening companies to do the task for them. There are several good reasons for hiring a professional company. We will discuss few of them in little detail.

First and foremost reason for hiring a professional screening company is that, if a screening company is good, it will certainly have years of experience in employment verification, criminal background screening, educational document verification and so on. Hence, these companies can screen the background of a candidate far better than the in-house screening done by the human resource department.

Another good reason for hiring a professional background screening service provider is that they do it very fast. A first priority of any HR department is to complete the hiring process as quickly as possible. And if HR gets involve in screening of a candidate, the task may get slow because of other human resource related course. It can become a hassle for HR and for candidate both. So HR prefers to hire a background screening company do the process fast.

Furthermore, cost saving is one thing that make a company to hire screening company. If HR does it by itself, it will need in-house professionals to do the screening of candidates. Means company has to pay these professionals to do the screening, other costs are also involved. On the other hand, HR finds services of background screening companies cost effective. The reason of cost effectiveness is that these companies already have established networks; they are specialized in their work. They find no hassle in doing background screening of an employee anywhere in the world, and hence become cost effective.

Conclusion

Pre employment background screening is one most important task which no company wants to overlook. But this work needs specialization, and background screening companies usually have years of experience and are specialized in executing the task efficiently. Therefore, HR department should think about hiring a good background screening company before establishing an in-house section for screening of a job candidate.

Offshore Drilling Employment Are You Looking For A Sample Cover Letter For Offshore Oil Rig Jobs

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If you are looking for offshore drilling employment, you need HR to read both your cover letter as well as your resume. First, you need to attract their attention. Then you need make them interested enough to read your cover letter. Your cover letter must make them desire to read your resume, and finally, your resume must get them to shortlist you for an interview.

Forget the perfect cover letter. There is no such thing. What turns on a particular HR officer will just bore a different officer. What formats they like best largely depends on which university they got their degree from. However, what can be definitely said is that the first half-page of your cover letter is the most important. It must contain at least one of these three powerful elements.

1. What Is Your Most Relevant Job Experience?

This is one of the major criterion HR uses to decide whether or not to trash your job application. When competition for an oil rig job is stiff, you need to immediately show that you are qualified for the vacancy. You have to put forward your most relevant prior job experiences and tie them to the job scope and qualifications listed in the job advertisement. Keep it clear, short and simple, and direct HR to your resume for more details.

Nothing beats qualified practical on-the-job experience, but if you don’t even have any relevant training then your chances are practically nil. The oil industry is of strategic importance to most industrialized nations, so there are often relevant courses offered by technical colleges. In the US, the Department of Labor’s JobCorps program offers some form of subsidy for disadvantaged youths. Some local state governments may also offer further subsidies. The UK is no different. In addition, ex-servicement also receive subsidies to train for the oil industry.

Training doesn’t come cheap, but it beats submitting a blank resume with no experience. When you go through regular channels, you won’t beat rivals who have relevant real job experience. On the other hand, every chance you grab to put Lady Luck on your side is a step closer to getting offshore drilling employment.

2. What Are Your Outstanding Points

Now that you have persuaded the HR personnel that you are qualified for the job, you need to tell them what makes you special and why they should open your resume. To do this, you need to show either more breadth in your experience, or more depth.

An example of showing more depth is having more years of experience than everyone else. For example, an offshore roustabout position may specify 2 years of relevant experience. If you have 5 years of experience, you’ll clearly beat out quite a lot of your rivals for the vacancy.

Another example would be rig welding jobs. Do you have a “6 GR” certification from CITB (UK) or certification from AWS (US)? Can you provide examples of welding particularly tricky joints that can be found on an oil platform?

How about more breadth? Let’s say you are looking for work in the motor room. Do you also have some experience or training in electrical work? Can you offer a two-in-one deal to HR? If the company hires you to be a mechanic, can you sometimes help out the oil rig electrician?

3. Start Work Immediately

No company likes to wait for a job candidate to become available. Just like you want a job now, they want a worker now! That means if you can start work immediately, you can sometimes trump a rival with better experience.

This isn’t the only point. Working of an offshore oil rig involves a lot of red tape. If you can show HR that you’ve already cleared all the red tape needed to hire you, they are more likely to put your resume in the “Call For Interview” pile. After all, it means you are saving them a lot of work.

So what kind of red tape do you need to wade through? That depends on where you are going to work and who you are going to work for, but here is a sample:

Firefighting
First aid
Helicopter underwater escape training
Offshore survival
Vaccinations
Passport
Visa
Relevant local union membership

You’ll note that some of these hurdles don’t make sense. That’s fine – government rules don’t always make sense, and things only get more complicated when you mix in the unions and trade associations.

Cover letters for offshore drilling employment must highlight your most important points and persuade HR to read your resume. Unless you are getting a job through the back door, your cover letter together with your resume can make or break your job application.

Requirements For Singapore Employment Pass Eligibility

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There are three categories of Employment Passes in Singapore: the P1 Employment Pass, P2 Employment Pass and Q1 Employment Pass. Before considering to apply for a particular employment pass, it is important that you possess all the required criteria to be eligible for the employment pass you are applying for.
The basic requirements to be eligible for a Singapore Employment Pass is that the foreigner applicant must have a fixed monthly salary of at least S$2,500 and must possess the recognized qualifications which includes acceptable degrees, professional qualifications or specialist skills. The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) is the authority that evaluates each EP application and qualification, based on a criteria that includes the following: global and country institution rankings by independent accreditation boards, hiring history by top companies in Singapore, validation by HR consultants in listed countries, employment outcome of the institution’s graduates, and the institution’s enrollment standards.
In addition to the foregoing basic requirements of monthly salary and recognized qualifications for a Singapore EP, each of the three categories of EPs have specific eligibility requirements and this article will discuss each of these categories briefly:
P1 Employment Pass
A P1 Employment Pass can be given to an applicant who performs a Professional, Managerial, Executive or Specialist job and has a fixed monthly salary of at least S$7,000.
P2 Employment Pass
A P2 Employment Pass can be given to an applicant who performs a Professional, Managerial, Executive or Specialist job and has a fixed monthly salary of at least S$3,500 and not more than S$7,000.
Q1 Employment Pass
A Q1 Employment Pass can be given to an applicant who performs a Professional, Managerial, Executive or Specialist job and has a fixed monthly salary of at least S$2,500 and not more than S$3,500. An applicant who does not possess the recognized qualifications as discussed in the first part of this article can still be eligible for a Q1 EP provided he possesses compensatory factors such as skills and years of experience, depending on the discretion of the MOM. A minimum of 5 years of relevant work experience is a plus factor.
A fixed monthly salary, as discussed above, refers to the total regular income of a foreign employee earned from his job, including his basic salary, and this income must be paid to the employee on a fixed monthly basis, regardless of his performance.
A fixed monthly salary and/or basic salary does not include the following: additional payment by way of overtime, bonus or commission; any form of reimbursements or in-kind payments; any sum paid to an employee or contract worker to defray special expenses incurred by him owing to the special, unusual or hazardous nature of the employment; any productivity incentive payments and any allowances which are variable in nature; any contributions paid by the employer or employee to any pension or provident fund; or any gratuity payable on discharge or retirement.

Oil Rigs Employment The Truth About Interviews For Oil Rig Jobs

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Do you feel stressed when looking for oil rigs employment? It’s natural. No matter how experienced you may be, everyone feels anxious when they have to look for a new job. For many people, the most frightening part of finding a job is the interview itself. And yet, by rights, this should be the least worrying part of your job hunt. This article discusses some facts about the oil rig job interview which should help to remove your interview anxieties.

Once you get your interview, you are well on your way to getting a job. Depending on the state of the economy, for every 5 interviews you attend, you could get up to 3 or even 4 job offers. The simple fact is that conducting interviews is expensive. Employers don’t like it because it takes away productive working time from their senior staff. That’s why most HR departments aggressively examine job applicants prior to shortlisting them for interviews.

In a booming economy, experienced oil rig workers can get job offers from their very first interview. But even in a weak economy, even the most inexperienced candidate for offshore oil rig jobs should receive at least 1 or 2 offers from for every 10 interviews he attends. If you are being rejected for every interview, you may need to consider whether or not you are suffering from self-sabotaging behavior. It is probably a good idea to take time out from your job hunt to seek professional counseling to fix this problem.

Sometimes you can see many advertisements for oil rig roustabout jobs and other offshore drilling jobs, especially in the free-to-use job boards like Monster. So you think you should have a good chance of getting an interview. But when you don’t get any calls, you start to lose confidence in yourself and your resume. Before giving up on working in the oil industry, you should know that many employers sometimes put out fake advertisements of vacancies to find out how easily they can hire new workers. If they find many unemployed workers, they will take the opportunity to pressure their existing workers to accept pay cuts or risk losing their jobs to someone who will work cheaper.

Clearing your interview is the last step to getting hired. So make sure you show the right attitude to your interviewer. You need to that you are tough, independent, have initiative, and are a team-worker. You also need to show the interviewer that you have at least some of the skills needed to work on an oil rig. Even though you have already stated your relevant skills in your resume, the interview is where you convince your future boss that you have some of the needed skills and are able to pick up more of what’s needed.

Interviews for oil rigs employment are stressful. But if you keep the facts above in mind, you should find some of your worries melting away. It is all a numbers game – attend enough interviews and you will definitely get a job.