Last week we talked about the employment issues arising from Edward Snowden’s leaks about NSA surveillance programs. Snowden was once again in the news as he attempts to find political asylum to whomever will take him. Not surprisingly he has enlisted the help of Wikileaks and Ecuador appears to be the target. This is the same country that granted asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange – he lives in its London embassy. There have also been reports he was supposed to travel to Cuba and appears to have become a political hot potato.
As discussed last week employers whose employees do bad things are often attacked in terms of their screening and interview process. That is exactly what has happened with Snowden. Apparently Snowden was screened by both Booz Hamilton (the government contractor) and another company called USIS. He passed both reviews, but now there are indications there may be some inconsistencies in the background he provided. Scrutiny of his hiring will no doubt continue along with Snowden’s international travels.
The takeaway for employers is to make sure they verify resumes’ and backgrounds to ensure that potential employees are not lying or overstating things. These are usually a pretty good indicator of someone that should not be hired.
