Identity Verification: Ensuring Accurate Hiring and Understanding Misconceptions with Meg Wilson Chief Product Officer at Sterling

[00:00:00] Oh my goodness, bad touching, harassment, sex, violence, fraud, threats, all things that could have been avoided. If you had FAMA, stop hiring dangerous people. FAMA.io You know what I like about iSolved? Everything. iSolved is people-centric, and in a people-centric world you need a people-centric solution.

[00:00:31] iSolved People Cloud is a comprehensive human capital management solution that helps you employ, enable, and empower your workforce throughout the entire employment lifecycle. From tracking to recruiting to onboarding and compliance from payroll to benefits to time and labor management,

[00:00:46] transform your employee experience for a better today and a better tomorrow with iSolved. For more information, go to iSolvedHCM.com Hey this is William Tenkow, you're listening and watching the You Should Know podcast.

[00:01:10] And today we're talking with Meg Wilson from Sterling, and our topic today is the role of identity verification in hiring. So we're going to start there, but Meg's going to take us on an odyssey and we're just going to follow her around.

[00:01:23] Meg, would you do us a favor and introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. Meg Wilson, Chief Product Officer at Sterling. I've been with Sterling for about three and a half years now.

[00:01:38] Previous to Sterling, I was with SAP for almost 11 years. Previous to that, I was with a lot. I basically grew up in the human capital management space. I was with Athoria, I was with Kronos, Deploy Solutions, and then spent a good amount of time at SAP SuccessFactors.

[00:01:57] When were you at Deploy? Oh my gosh. I think it was 100 years ago. Yeah, very, very long time ago, right before Kronos acquired them. Okay. Was Shom Sal still there? Oh, yeah. So we worked with Shom. We did a lot of the outsourced marketing back then. Okay.

[00:02:21] And your CEO, she was amazing. I can't remember her name right now. She was in a marketing meeting with us at one point. And Shom had all this team there. We had all the agency there.

[00:02:34] Well, a small part of the agency there. So a lot of people in one room. And she was there. We were rebranding something. And I was quiet, which I'm never quiet. So she asked me, do you remember? What was her name? I can't remember her name.

[00:02:51] Yeah. Her father did like AMS. He was a big shot in Boston. Made a lot of money. I can't remember anyhow. Well, she looked at me and she goes, William, you're being quiet. What's going on? I said, well, I'm just wondering why you're in this fucking room.

[00:03:06] She looks at me and she goes, what? I said, I don't mean to be disrespectful. I'm just figuring you have CEO shit to do. Why are you in this room? Your entire marketing team's here.

[00:03:18] Your CMO is brilliant. We have all of our team here. Why are you here? And she looked at me and she started laughing. She goes, you're right. Right. Why am I here? She got up and she left.

[00:03:31] And then, of course, all the Deploy Solutions people were like, what in the hell are you doing? I'm like, I don't need a CEO looking over my shoulder. Right. Your entire marketing team's here. But yeah, I know all the companies that you've been with.

[00:03:47] I've had experience, well, as they be proper and success factors. What did you do at? So I joined them as part of their professional services organization doing some large scale global implementations for their recruiting product. And then eventually moved into the product area there.

[00:04:07] And then when I left, I had been running the recruiting product team organization at that point. For SAP or success factors? For success factors. Yeah. Yay. Oh my God. You're crisscrossed with a bunch of people I know. That's fantastic. Tiny world. Not a sand world.

[00:04:26] It is a tiny world. Getting smaller every day. Wow, that is fantastic. So tell us about the role of your Chief Product Officer. What do you say you do? What's the job? Yeah, so I'm ultimately responsible for... That sounds like he's not going to believe you. No, no.

[00:04:45] Tell us what you think you do. We're going to tell you what you do. That's a bit from office space. You still haven't even introduced me. You totally skipped over me by the way. Oh, right. Hey. Sorry. Go ahead. Meg, tell us what you do.

[00:05:00] Yeah, so I'm ultimately responsible for the functionality, the building, the design of all the product feature functionality for Sterling. My team is made up of a bunch of folks associated with building products.

[00:05:17] Also, integrating with the vendors and the data providers in which we use to fulfill our services. So I have product management designers. I also have a group that reports under me that we did, that we had a recent acquisition of a company called Volt, Volt Clinic Management Solutions.

[00:05:38] And they're under my purview as well. We're excited to bring them into the fold to expand our drug and health offering as well. That's smart. Yeah, we interviewed Ryan. We interviewed them at SHRM. We did? Yeah, we interviewed them. Two years ago.

[00:05:55] We were doing a podcast from a booth. Yeah, 23 SHRM in Vegas. And we interviewed them, loved them. But there was a bunch of those companies that kind of cropped up out of COVID. So they were into that remote testing world.

[00:06:10] And then all of a sudden they're just like, wait a minute, there's another world here. We could do remote drug testing. But we liked them. That was a really cool interview. Yeah, that was great. So the topic, identity verification.

[00:06:24] So I would assume the way Ryan and I have talked about it in the past is how do we know you are you-ish? So how do you and your customers look at identity verification? Yeah, well, just to back up a tiny bit.

[00:06:41] Sterling is obviously one of the largest global leaders in background screening and identity services. And we are definitely, we believe, kind of cutting edge and leading in that identity service space.

[00:06:53] We really expanded that offering over the last couple of years where we started to partner with IDMEE and the US and then YODY from an international standpoint. Taylor. Yes, Taylor. Absolutely.

[00:07:07] And yeah, so I mean, we have what I find fascinating because I obviously I come from the recruiting space. I've been in a stand for a long time, but screening to me was a bit new when I first joined here.

[00:07:21] And there's a lot of misconceptions on that the fact that there really is identity verification that's just automatically done with background screening. It's really not. You can actually say you are whoever you want to say you are.

[00:07:34] And unless you can actually verify that information, you're kind of like running these checks on folks that you don't even know if I am Meg Wilson. Right. So so yeah, so we've we've spent quite a bit of time most recently working with our customers,

[00:07:50] working with our clients to better understand the problems they're trying to solve related to fraud. I want to take a break real quick just to let you know about a new show.

[00:08:00] We've just added to the network up next at work hosted by Jean and Kate Akil of the Devin Group. Fantastic show. If you're looking for something that pushes the norm, pushes the boundaries, has some really spirited conversations, Google up next at work.

[00:08:20] Jean and Kate Akil from the Devin Group. There is quite a bit of it nowadays where you've got people who are, you know, trying to get employed and then farming out their job, reselling their job. Right. That's a pretty common thing that's happening.

[00:08:37] That's a that's a covid remote work thing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. What's happened before that too? There's been a there's been a couple of really funny cases prior to covid. Yeah, it's an interesting covid development for sure.

[00:08:55] Yeah. Yeah. So we've we've been spending a lot of time in this space and we, you know, from an innovation standpoint, really thinking. And again, like I said, there's a misconception out there that a lot of people think it's just automatically done and it's not right.

[00:09:11] And so what we wanted to do was make sure we were offering. Hey, Meg, just sorry, man. I hate interrupting people, but for the audience that application, do they think that ID verify or identity verification is just bolted into like you're doing a background check?

[00:09:28] Right. And it's just a part of the process. Is that some of the misconception? That's not but also like, you know, one of the standard services offered is like a social security trace check. Right. Right.

[00:09:42] That's a pretty basic check that will be done. And some people just automatically think, well, that's an identity check. That's not it's just I go I go by a social security number right now.

[00:09:55] Right. So I just think that there's a misconception based upon the fact that I can provide information and that is proving my identity versus truly proving my identity through a verification process through a digital identity process. I think that's it. That's a big piece of it.

[00:10:15] So walk me through that process because I don't think I've ever been outside of my TSA stuff. I don't think I've ever been identified or verified, I should say, for employment or any.

[00:10:27] It's always just been fill this out, run it in. They do a background check, make sure I don't have criminal. I've been laundered money, but I don't think I've ever at least I've never been told that I've been verified. What does that actually look like?

[00:10:40] So, yeah. So from a U.S. perspective, like I said, we partner with IDME. We've built in that candidate experience right into the process.

[00:10:49] So as a candidate who is being or as an applicant that's going through a background screening process identity being part of the package will kick off that that process.

[00:11:01] Will you either log in with your IDME account because IDME is now I think they're up to like 124 million verified users in the U.S. Or we'll ask if you want to create an IDME account and utilize that in order to kind of flow through the process.

[00:11:17] So it's all seamlessly baked into our experience. You probably wouldn't know the difference necessarily. And there's different versions or we would say levels and tiers of identity verification that that clients can choose to do.

[00:11:31] Right. So you can do it based on document verification all the way up to having like liveness and showing documents live with a virtual agent right in order to verify identity.

[00:11:42] So there's lots of different tiers and versions that we do offer just based upon what clients are looking for and the security that they want to put in place.

[00:11:50] And the customers or the industries that care about this more? I mean at least kind of the adoption curve. What are those? Yeah, it's interesting. I mean it really applies to almost everybody right where we are seeing some pretty major adoption is there's a lot in financial services.

[00:12:09] There's a lot going on with gig economy right now obviously which is very interesting. Yeah, because that's it's an important piece of you know if we've got delivery drivers or even drivers right. That sort of thing making sure you know who is behind the wheel there.

[00:12:27] Those are areas that we're definitely seeing quite a bit of it. I think we will continue to see a lot of adoption as the identity kind of innovation continues to grow and we start to move towards the reusable credentials

[00:12:43] reusable identities, the ability to store my employment information, my education information, my nursing credentials all that.

[00:12:52] I think we're going to see a lot of a lot of really interesting use cases on reusability and how they're going to be able to improve the overall experience and kind of like the It becomes more of a backpack that they take with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:13:09] That's similar to like a gauge score William. We're talking with gauge and they take that with them. That's interesting. Are there other industries that don't really care about this? I know that's probably not a great question but I mean it's I mean I think that's a fair question.

[00:13:27] Yeah, no, I don't think there's industries that don't necessarily care about it but I do like I said I think there's one I mean obviously there's a price associated to it.

[00:13:36] So, you know we have to pay for the service. So those that are not really interested in kind of making that additional investment.

[00:13:44] So there's a price point there. But like I said I think it applies to everyone. It's applicable across the board where we're seeing Sterling is seeing a lot of great traction is in our tech and business services area which includes our gig area as well.

[00:14:01] But again I think there's more to come. I think we're seeing also trends around the idea of identity monitoring. So continuously monitoring identity.

[00:14:12] And just hanging and saying oh hey can you just like do a selfie real quick or a live in this check with us real quick just to make sure you know the person who is we did employ is the actual person that is doing the work.

[00:14:27] I think what the background screening industry went through just a couple years ago is instead of being a one and done moving into more of a SaaS model, moving into monitoring in the sense of well it's great to do a background check before hire.

[00:14:43] Great. But after the hire if someone's up on a murder charge, they don't have to tell you. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:14:50] So being able to again manage risk in a way, a more modern way that just says hey listen we're going to go and run all these reports just to make sure that we're still fine.

[00:15:01] I like I actually like the fact of doing monitoring ID monitoring identification monitoring. So I think it's just smart business. Again, remote. If somebody's there sitting in front of you at an office.

[00:15:17] Okay, you might and you've already verified their, you know, their identity. You probably don't have to keep verifying their identity because they're sitting in the office right next to you.

[00:15:27] However, with flex and even with more remote work and global work. I think it's just I think it's just good business. Right? Yep. Yep. 100% agree.

[00:15:39] And the other thing that you know it does do because if you think about all kinds of different services that we offer right so any everything from public records, crime to drug and health services, everything.

[00:15:51] If you're starting with verified information to begin with. We've seen, I think it's like an increase of like 45% more criminal records found because we're starting with verified data to begin with. Right? And that's what our clients are looking for us to do.

[00:16:07] You're not having fat finger issues. You're starting with all the appropriate or in the accurate information to begin with. So your turnaround times are faster. We're able to move through providing those services back. You're able to find more records. The quality is higher.

[00:16:22] So really, you know we're doing a lot of educating out in the space right now as well to make sure that we can really explain the benefits of what identity screening can do to improve not just not just fraud, not just identity services but really your end to end screening process and program that you're offering.

[00:16:46] Dumb question alert. Well, go ahead. No, no, go ahead and ask the dumb question first. It's definitely. I'll set you up. I'll set you up so that you guys are real intelligent. I'll sound smarter. No, no, absolutely.

[00:16:58] So I had this dream the other day about the genetic testing services like 23andMe and Ancestry. Right? And all of that data that's DNA specific right you again you are who you are by your DNA right?

[00:17:14] Could we tap that from an employee's, from an employee verification standpoint? Do you see a world in which I know not I know not Europe got that here in the States.

[00:17:27] Those laws aren't on the books. Could we actually access even with permission? Right. Could we access Ancestry or 23andMe to really verify their identity? Yeah. I mean that gets interesting. I think. I don't know. Yes, that was a dumb question. Thanks, William.

[00:17:56] It's just it's I'm curious because again, I've got both those accounts. Right. But what I'm what's fascinating is like would someone open up those accounts if if you're going to be able to access those accounts?

[00:18:16] If if if they were if they were up for a murder charge or something like that. It's like we have DNA. It's like well here's my DNA. They have found criminals that way. They have found criminals that way. Yeah.

[00:18:27] But it's just again verifying someone's identity. Your DNA doesn't lie. It is what you are. My smarter question. Thank you, Ryan.

[00:18:38] We're going to bring this back to the smart people. So I don't know if you have this number. What percentage or how often are we finding false people? Like they're just not verified. They go through the process. You start the process. You're like, OK, we've got we've got one.

[00:18:58] How often is that actually happening? I don't know if I have the exact stat on percentages so I can share with you. It's happening. It's happening. I think it's like it's probably a five to eight percent, honestly. Yeah, it's high.

[00:19:18] And we've even had it so that we have candidates who have even kind of contested the identity process where we've actually had to reach out because we obviously partner very closely with IDME as part of this process and bring IDME in.

[00:19:33] IDME and they will actually say, oh no, this is a fraudulent. We've had issues with this person in the past before. So we see repeat offenders on this. It's a very common. It's fairly common that you are seeing a rise in fraud.

[00:19:50] And specifically like we talked about earlier around the reselling of opportunities and jobs and tasks to have somebody else do something for me.

[00:19:59] I can see that. I can see that especially. I mean, it's kind of happening globally, but I can also see that happening in certain parts of the world where they take on something and again maybe even do the first parts of it.

[00:20:11] And then they say, you know what? Yeah, I can now bring in a team of people and then they can do these pieces. And that's one way to collect the check. And I'll just go and collect a bunch of those.

[00:20:21] Right. Yeah. Yeah. And the nice thing, like if we again with IDME because if somebody has already created an account, they've been flagged, they've been suspended before.

[00:20:32] Right. And our client is using identity as part of their overall package. Then we're also I mean, we're saving them some money too because we're not going through and processing all these services.

[00:20:44] Right. Because if you can't get through identity, we're not going to go ahead and process the rest of the order that needs to be completed.

[00:20:51] I like smart. Are there any ethical issues that the companies need to be aware of as they're working with different companies or going through identity verification process?

[00:21:05] Ethical? I mean, we've worked very closely with our compliance team in order to make sure that the services and the offering that we've put together to support identity screening is fair and kind of meets all the regulations that it needs to.

[00:21:24] So we haven't really had that come up as much of a concern.

[00:21:30] Some of that comes down to communication with the candidate. Yep. It's like this is our process. You know, recruiting products really well. This is our process. You're going to go through here and you're going to do this.

[00:21:42] By the way, on a background check, I've seen some companies now move to you'll get a copy of the background check. Oh, my goodness. Bad touching harassment, sex violence, fraud threats, all things that could have been avoided.

[00:22:02] If you had Fama, stop hiring dangerous people. Fama. I. Oh, all right. I want to talk to you for a moment about retaining and developing your workforce is hard.

[00:22:17] Recruiting is hard. Retaining top employees is hard. Then you've got onboarding payroll benefits, time and labor management. You need to take care of your workforce and you can only do this successfully if you commit to transforming your employee experience.

[00:22:32] This is where I saw comes in. They empower you to be successful. We've seen it with a number of companies that we've worked with.

[00:22:40] And this is why we partner with them here at work to find. We trust them and you should too. Check them out at I solved HCM dot com.

[00:22:50] Yeah, whatever. Like, you know, we just want you to know that you're going to go through that. So it's getting passive affirmation.

[00:22:56] Okay, I understand the process. I understand this is what's going to go on. Right. And that's the compliance stuff. Obviously, your compliance teams can keep you compliant. Right. But some of it just comes down to communication with the candidate.

[00:23:08] Yep, yep, yep. Absolutely. And again, if you think about it from a candidate perspective, I mean, I personally, if I'm a candidate, I would love to be able to create a single identity wallet where then I can store my verified information into it.

[00:23:24] But I could reuse it as many times as I want to and not have to provide it, you know, and type it in and that sort of thing.

[00:23:31] And so again, I think that at least from my perspective, the future of this is how do we enable the person right to be able to take more ownership and control over their data, the reusability of their data?

[00:23:45] How do we want to think about issuing credentials? Right. I'm sure you're familiar with like the velocity network and what those folks are doing over there.

[00:23:53] Yeah. And so how are we going to all make sure that we're supporting the candidate experience, the client experience as much as we can to make it as easy as possible to provide this information?

[00:24:06] Almost like with a thumb, right? Share my information because or share what is required for me to share in order to go through the process. Right. How does this get baked into the ATS or people's recruiting technologies?

[00:24:23] Do they have a report or is it, you tell us because you're in the program. Yeah. Yeah. So today we do quite a bit of reporting with IDME that they can push back reporting information.

[00:24:38] We are careful in the reporting and how we're how we are reporting back of the status related to identity, right? Because we want to make sure that we're not misleading or giving information that could be made to make a hiring decision.

[00:24:53] But so we're very explicit on what we do share and what we don't share as far as like the reporting process goes. That all comes back to us through APIs. We can store that information into our system.

[00:25:05] And then, yeah, as you're probably aware, we have over seventy five plus integrations into ATS across the across the globe. And we can send back a lot of information, whatever they want us to send back into that ATS as appropriate.

[00:25:19] So we're able to do all that. So what's the so in the hiring process itself or not so much recruiting, I guess, in the hiring process itself,

[00:25:28] as they go through this, the the the verifications, if they come back and there's discrepancies, where does the candidate fall in that? Are these discrepancies? And I guess maybe a better question is what are the discrepancies that generally come up in identity in identity verification?

[00:25:49] That's what I'm really interested to understand. Well, and the only we we use IDME and we use Yodi to do the identity verification. Right. And so in order to in order to actually continue with the process, you have to verify your identity.

[00:26:03] Otherwise, it's right there. Right. So in order to verify your identity, there's different tiers of information that you have to provide in order to do that. So it's whether or not it's different pieces of documentation that you need to provide.

[00:26:17] Like I talked about the liveness aspect of it, where you're doing a selfie to make sure like you're a live person or you're even doing it with a virtual agent in order to confirm that.

[00:26:27] Those are all the pieces. Right. But but we actually we don't if you can't make it through identity, that's where it stops with us.

[00:26:35] So any reasons that you wouldn't get through identity would be if you can't provide that information that work that is necessary in order to validate you are who you are.

[00:26:43] Right. And then from there, there is quite a support model that's in place with IDME where candidates can get support in order to kind of continue to move through it. But it's fairly rigid and complex just to make sure that we talk about bad actors aren't getting through.

[00:27:02] So they do a really good job of making sure we're really clear on if somebody is getting stopped.

[00:27:07] There's a reason for it. Right. And they're going to they're going to make sure that the appropriate information and documentation is shared with us in order to proceed through it from a buying questions perspective or like when people if they've never bought this.

[00:27:23] Yep. Like IDD, identity verification is just new to them. Maybe they've done screening for years and years and years. They've used starting for years and years and years. What should they be asking you that they're not asking?

[00:27:38] That's a great question. And we start right now all of our all of our go to market is including identity. So we go in talking to every single client, every single customer with identity first. That's kind of from Jump Street.

[00:27:54] Yeah, that's how we start. Right. Because again, we share with them. This is the increase in equality that we're seeing. This is the increase in your candidate and your satisfaction associated, your candidate experience. Right.

[00:28:06] This is we believe that this will really improve your overall program that you want to offer. So I know our teams do quite a bit of just client education like we talked about before because of the misnomer of well, we already do that.

[00:28:21] No, we don't actually. So let us let us explain what we do and how we do it so that you can now take advantage of it.

[00:28:28] Right. So there's a lot of that that we lead in with. But I think it's also important for clients to be asking us like how can we like learning more about how they can take advantage of some of the real true benefits of identity solutions.

[00:28:46] Right. So the reusability of the information, the improvement and the turnaround time, the quality that you're going to be getting back as well.

[00:28:55] I think those are all huge benefits. But Sterling as a whole goes in nowadays with an identity first approach because we truly believe it's a differentiator and it's going to make sure it's improving your overall program and improving all of your services, not just identity.

[00:29:10] The other thing we're also working on right now is how we can decouple identity from some of these services. Right. So is there a different points in the process where you would want to do a certain level of identity check right up front.

[00:29:25] Right. So maybe it's just a quick basic, you know, Meg Wilson is Meg Wilson. But then once you get further throughout the process, you actually want to do a deeper dive into that identity.

[00:29:35] And then we talked about the monitoring as well. But being able to kind of pick and choose coming from the recruiting world, I've always said like the ability to apply with IDME.

[00:29:46] I think it's like that would be amazing. All right. All my information is in there. All I have to do is click a button and apply with IDME, apply with Yodi. All my information goes through from application all the way through to the screening process as well. Right.

[00:30:01] What are we looking at? The type of company that's bringing in identity verification. Is this by type of company meaning size of company? Is this an enterprise solution or I mean obviously a 10 person or 15, 20 person company could benefit from this as well.

[00:30:22] But where do you fall in terms of market? Where are you selling into? Yeah, Sterling as a whole is generally focused on enterprise. So most of our clients are very large enterprise customers that we sell into.

[00:30:38] So I'd say that's the bulk of what we're supporting. Like you said, I think it applies to everybody and it's useful to everybody. But we sell into primarily enterprise organization.

[00:30:52] I love that. So I love that you're leading with identity verification because again, it gets to the heart of this person shouldn't even move forward in the process.

[00:31:02] Because it shouldn't waste any time in the process and it should be something that's shortlisted if we can verify they are who they say they are. Right.

[00:31:14] You know, you brought up something earlier about criminal records. I want to get your take on, you know, not all felonies are the same, right? There's what I think 70 million Americans have felonies or something like that. So but not all those are the same.

[00:31:33] Do you see, I mean the ban, the box and all that other stuff that's been going on for years. Do you see people with your clients really move? Like again, understanding that and verifying that.

[00:31:44] So first of all, understanding screening, especially if they check the box and all that other stuff. But understanding what that was and then verifying that. Do you see movement in that space at all in terms of hiring convicted felons?

[00:32:00] I see. Okay. So like a little more changes in the structure. I think we are seeing some, right? I think depending upon the organization, depending upon the industry, depending upon the types of engagement that those employees are having and on the audiences in which they're working with.

[00:32:22] Yes, I do think that we are seeing some of that. You know, with the introduction of the continuous monitoring, which we've been doing actually a lot of most recently as well.

[00:32:33] So the criminal monitoring and VR monitoring, all those kinds of different services so that like you mentioned at the beginning, you know, no one knows what you do after you're hired,

[00:32:44] which is also kind of a crazy thing. Identity and the fact that no one knows what you do after is all that fascinating when you think about it.

[00:32:53] So, yeah, I do think with the addition of those services and being available, I think we are seeing a little bit of a change there. Yeah, and I think it honestly just all depends on a lot on the industry and the clients.

[00:33:08] Just a quick follow up. I mean, I know there's a reason to decouple those things because customers would like to buy off the Chinese menu of sorts. So I get that. Do you see a world where screening, monitoring and verification?

[00:33:24] They just become synonymous as the same thing. And you just it is what it is. This is what you going forward. This is what you have to do. You got a screen. You got to verify and you got a monitor.

[00:33:37] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I really do think there's that's where we're headed. I think in order just to make sure clients are being able to instill that trust and safety within an organization, both to their employees but also to their clients.

[00:33:54] Right. People are going to want to be monitoring. They're going to want to be able to have a confidence in knowing who they're hiring and making sure that their organization is safe, safe for their employees, safe for offering their services.

[00:34:10] So, yeah, I think we're we're seeing quite a bit there. And I think that is going to start to become some of the norm. Yeah, as we kind of look to the future. I think may too. No, no, go for it. Finish up.

[00:34:25] I was going to go somewhere else. So let's go somewhere else. Well, I'll come back to my question. I was going to say was, you know, the other area we've been doing a lot in because there has been some change in regulation with I nine remote verification.

[00:34:41] We've also partnered with ID me. So we actually use ID me as virtual agents now to do the remote inspection of the I nine documentation.

[00:34:50] And if you think about how identity pins into all of that right so if the client is identity at the very top of the funnel as part of the screening process.

[00:34:58] And then once you get to that I nine process, you're still using if you're still using ID me right and the identity process. The I nine is like, yeah, it's like almost done. Right.

[00:35:12] So so I think there's just what I was what I wanted to make sure I was kind of pulling out there is we talked about the monitoring but there is an entire life cycle.

[00:35:22] I think where identity is pulling a lot of these pieces of screening together throughout the entire life cycle of of an employee being employed within an organization from beginning all the way through continuous eventually to off boarding and even rehire at some point as well.

[00:35:41] So make two two questions for you as we know we're coming up on time but two quick questions. One is how these are about this is more about the buying process or selling process I guess.

[00:35:56] How do you know a company just doesn't get it. Number one. So you're talking to them. You guys are talking to them.

[00:36:04] You guys don't get it. What is that trigger there and then on the flip side to that is as you're talking either to them or another company.

[00:36:13] What part of the conversation do you get to when you're when you realize that most of the most of who become your clients. I'm sure a number of them come to say we need this. So where do we start.

[00:36:30] Right. Yeah. But where's the moment and where's the ones you're just like you just shouldn't be talking because you're not ready. Yeah. And you're going to be out of business next month. Nice way of saying that. I think I try.

[00:36:47] I think that what's interesting is is that most organizations like I said right they don't necessarily think they need it. So what our teams are doing when they're going into these opportunities is we are doing a ton of education.

[00:37:05] So we're doing a lot of education around here is why and what this is going to do to your overall program.

[00:37:12] Right. So there's quite a bit of tailoring that's done better understand the audience the program that they're running the different types of searches and services that they need to do and how identity will potentially impact that we're also open to doing like in some instances we'll do trials.

[00:37:30] So we'll let them especially those that have been some of our clients customers for quite some time and we would love for them to take a look at identity.

[00:37:39] Try it. Let's see what happens. Right. And let's take a look and we'll do some deltas and reporting and kind of see like OK what it looked like before what to look like now what's the overall experience the feedback that you're getting from your candidates at the same time and then also some from a quality perspective as well.

[00:37:55] And then yeah I mean there are some that are just like you know we're not doing it. I want to do it and you know we can still offer them all kinds of other screening services but we will do those companies ever go back and identify their own employees and then realize we need to get rid of these 30 people because they've done bad things and they're lying to us.

[00:38:19] Am I going down the wrong path here. No if they don't believe in it. I mean again that's the mentality of I just don't want to know which does happen in recruiting and in HR in particular. I don't want to know.

[00:38:34] So that is a very real thing in HR. But them then following up not using the technology and then them following up and verifying on their own. They don't want to go down the rabbit hole because they don't want to know.

[00:38:46] Yeah I mean I could see bringing this in and running it on my internal employee population if we haven't done it already especially if we're remote and here's a new process. It would be good to know that data. Yeah it would be good to know.

[00:39:02] But then what's the what's the repercussion of that if you find some people. Here's the ethical quandary or here's an ethical quandary though Ryan. You do that bit and you find out one of your top performers in sales isn't who they say they are. Do you fire them?

[00:39:19] Kind of have to right. No you don't. You don't at all. Trying to make quota. Your CRO is going to tell you I don't care what their name is. I don't care if they're in Taiwan. All I care about is the sale.

[00:39:34] Yeah or go hire that actual person. No but see the thing is is that actual person might not be a person. It might be a team. See this is the conversation. Meg's like yeah you guys would be awful buyers for us. You are not a good customer.

[00:39:51] No no. Two things really quickly Meg before we go. One is years ago background screens were for the employee population not necessarily VP and above. You can remember a team. You can remember a time in which we would say well we need to screen all these people.

[00:40:11] Code for not executives. I could see verification being really sticky. A really interesting topic especially monitoring. So I'm putting those three together because I think they are together. I just don't know it yet. So verification monitoring and so on. I can see that becoming really interesting.

[00:40:34] First of all it should be done if it's done for somebody in the front line. It should be done throughout the organization. However it hasn't historically been that way. So what should we take there?

[00:40:45] Yeah I mean I think executive diligence which we also provide right within the organization. What should we take there? I think they absolutely should be part of the standard process. I don't think there's any reason to.

[00:41:13] I don't think it's not money well spent in order to make sure those folks that are some of your highest paid employees of the organization and have privy to information at the top of the funnel should be going through that.

[00:41:29] So yeah I would say I think that is most of our clients that I work with I'm trying to think. Obviously you can run different packages based on job profiles and such. But I think a lot of them are it's a blanket right.

[00:41:45] It's like no we're just going to put in front of everything. We're just going to do it across the board. So I think that's what we've been seeing quite a bit of.

[00:41:52] With identity fraud I'm going to say I'll just say it like as I think it because that's how I roll. I would assume that that's a male thing more than a female thing. I don't think I have the data. Oh man come on. That's a cop out.

[00:42:11] I don't have the data. You know that you know I'm just kidding. This is politician Meg now. Very well done Meg very very well done. Last question is as robots become employees and they have employee records so we treat them as employees. Yep.

[00:42:31] Do we do the same things like what's the verification or what's the monitoring. Or what is the screening look like for robots. Yeah I mean yeah that gets really interesting right.

[00:42:44] Like verifying that who the like making sure the robot is who the robot really says they are where they came from. What they're doing. Yeah I mean it's the same thing right. Same thing. So if it's outputs okay you're trying to verify the who's putting those outputs together.

[00:43:02] Yes they're not a human being. They don't have a social security number but they have an algorithm. An algorithm they could be using data for misuse. That's correct. Maybe not today. Yeah not today. Maybe not today Meg. You don't have to worry about today.

[00:43:20] However coming to a theater near us very quickly. And is it working for a competitor as well and sharing information there has to be verification there. Yeah. That's right. That's interesting. William is putting his hand up to run that division. Anytime just call me.

[00:43:39] I'm unemployable and you don't want to run it out. You don't want to run a screen on me. Meg you've been wonderful. Thank you so much for carving out some of your time and schooling us. This has been wonderful. Oh good. Well thank you for having me.

[00:43:54] I really appreciate it.