You should think long and hard about whether sharing your social media channels is relevant to the role you’re applying forNetWatch Global have announced the launch of their innovative pre-employment screening and vetting service.
Frustrated by ‘traditional’ employment checks failing to identify the modern risks faced by businesses NetWatch took on the challenge to create a new wave of pre and post-employment screening and vetting solutions and boy have they delivered.
Tristan Prince, Chief Commercial Officer at NetWatch Global comments: “After years of experience in helping businesses to address the problems that result from employing bad employees we decided enough is enough. Traditional employment checks are so binary and focus on verifying the same old information like name, address, date of birth.
At NetWatch we appreciate that candidates and employees are people and that their personality, morals and actions are certainly not binary. By starting with the problem “how do we make things better?” we were able to build a solution from the ground up that focusses on solving a number of the major issues, challenges and risks faced by recruiters, HR Professionals and the other key stakeholders in an organisation.”
The NetWatch service, which went live, firmly sets out their goal of being “The new standard in pre-employment screening”. NetWatch themselves have gone from strength to strength in the world of Open Source & Social Media investigation and analysis – launching their own tools and services to help Insurers, Financial Services Companies and Global Brands to combat fraud, crime and risk.
Whilst many traditional ‘technology’ businesses focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning to extract data more quickly and at minimal cost NetWatch have steered clear of this Pandora’s box; maintaining their stance that using human analysts alongside technology will always give their services the edge.
NetWatch are offering a suite of different services on their new PES website which range from a ‘traditional’ employment check to a NetWatch Executive check; this includes services like verification of qualifications, character reference interviews, five years of employment referencing and most uniquely NetWatch’s signature Open Source and Social Media screening
This part of the NetWatch service is where they really begin to pull apart and differentiate from the competition. NetWatch analysts use the companies own in-house proprietary tools to analyse social media and the internet for any associated accounts for an individual and then use a combination of searching algorithms and pre-defined criteria to search for any content which could potentially make the candidate unsuitable for the role.
This can range from everything such as drug abuse, crime, sexist or extremist views or even undisclosed criminal convictions or pending criminal proceedings.
The NetWatch solution is designed to help businesses to reduce the risk, cost and brand damage associated with social media abuse, data theft and breach, internal fraud and organised crime. In addition, it has been proven to help businesses positively support existing staff with health, addiction or mental wellbeing issues by flagging the warning signs early and allowing companies to support their staff.
David Purcell, Chief Operating Officer at NetWatch and the brains behind the service comments: “I’m excited to provide the next generation of employment screening and vetting services. When we looked at the industry and the challenges being faced we decided that starting with the problems was the best way forward.
HR professionals were struggling to chase references, missing vital warning signs and paying the consequences with hefty employment tribunals, higher than average long-term sickness rates and tabloid headlines of staff insulting customers and colleagues.
We thought there must be a better way to screen candidates and employees than traditional checks that, let’s face it, have been around since the dawn of the typewriter!”
To find out more about the service visit www.netwatchglobal.com/pes
