Reference no: EM133162653

QUESTIONS

1. What are the reasons for and against conducting a reference check in this situation? Should they conduct a reference check?

2. Should they also conduct a background check on the candidate being offered a job?

3. Should background checks be made before a candidate receives a job offer? If so, how can companies avoid obtaining information that may be used to discriminate against the candidate?

4. If you discover that the job applicant has a criminal record, can you then disqualify that candidate solely on that ground and without fear of violating that candidate's human rights?

5. Would it be worthwhile to conduct an Internet search to see if there is any other information that can be found on this candidate? Are there any risks with this type of information search?

6. Based on the Director of Communications job description from the case, which of the qualifications and requirements can and should be assessed during the screening process? Be sure to explain your reasoning.

Case Study

"What's the point?" asked the President of Wilfrid Glass, a Canadian-based manufacturer of glass with a dominant share of the international market, to her Director of Human Resources. The two Wilfrid Glass executives were finalizing their plans to present a job offer to a candidate for the newly created position of "Director of Communications" and they were debating

whether to conduct a reference check. The President repeated her question, "What's the point? I mean any time you call a reference all they say is how wonderful the person is. And we don't have any time to spare because our top candidate has already indicated that she has another job offer. If we wait to conduct her reference check, then we might risk losing her." The

Director of Human Resources responded, "That's all true and oftentimes the references will only verify the person's position and length of service, which I guess isn't very helpful." The Director of Communications will be responsible for both internal and external communications for the company, including writing corporate newsletters, communicating with the press in a public relations function, coaching senior officers on ways to improve their presentation skills, communicating corporate directions

and policies to employees verbally and in writing, and soliciting news from employees for reporting in corporate newsletters to enhance cohesiveness and morale. The other qualifications and requirements associated with the Director of Communications job description are as follows:

• Fluency in both written and spoken French and English;

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills;
• Ability to manage interpersonal conflict;
• Ability to work under tight timelines, with multi conflicting demands;Ability to plan and organize;
• Ability to solicit information and cooperation from others and to overcome personal obstacles;
• Ability to extract relevant information from an abundance of reports and to summarize it; Ability to present relatively difficult material in an easily understandable manner;
• Ability to provide effective coaching to senior officers for improving their presentation skills;

Ability to motivate others to embrace and execute corporate policies; and

• Ability to manage the communications budget for the company.

The President summarized the situation with the following statement, "Well, we need to make a decision here, should we conduct a reference check or not? And we haven't even discussed a background check yet. We need to make some decisions."

As the Director of Human Resources, you will need to make a recommendation to the President regarding this situation.