Do You Know How To Protect Your Company?

A large company’s HR director used a headhunter to hire a key person who quickly fast-tracked to the top of the organization. The HR director had lingering doubts because the person had been educated internationally and, while the headhunter had verified by phone that the candidate had attended these institutions, they had no way of knowing if the institutions were accredited. Indeed, the degrees could have been purchased from a degree mill and they would not have been the wiser.

Degree mills are shady outfits that sell degrees and transcripts that are not backed up by appropriate study or examinations. Degree mills are prevalent on the internet where they pose as distance learning institutions, but they tend to operate from a mail drop staffed by a skeleton crew. Many claim to be “accredited” by fictitious agencies or have been able to acquire URLs ending in “.edu” to make them look legitimate.

A credential evaluation from Word Education Services (WES) protects you from hiring someone who has obtained their documents from a degree mill. When candidates enter your HiringSmart Portal to complete the first interview online, the educational history page has a direct link to obtain their certification report from WES.

HiringSmart employers are encouraged to ask international job applicants for a copy of their WES credential evaluation, and that headhunters have all such applicants’ educational credentials evaluated.