More Stories
Carol Haslett Consulting, LLC
Thorough Executive Background Checks Complement Carol Haslett Consulting
Not too many professionals could handle the pressure of Carol Haslett’s job. As President of Carol Haslett Consulting, LLC, Haslett expedites special projects for high level decision makers, elected officials, corporate boards, commissions and civic groups. Hers is a specialty that’s very necessary in a business world where large organizations frequently must rely on outside consultants to “do a specific project, do it quickly and do it well.”
“Organizations turn to me when they can’t rely on internal sources to help make specific major decisions partially because of bias or bureaucracy issues,” Haslett explains. “As a third-party consultant, I assist in conducting the due diligence required to help organizations make those decisions in a very non-biased, streamlined and expedited approach.”
Haslett’s client list reads like a “Who’s Who” of the corporate, political and non-profit world, and the relationship she’s forged with her clients is built on a solid foundation of trust, confidentiality and commitment.
So when faced with the recent assignment of conducting background checks and making recommendations on a pool of candidates vying for a top leadership position in Cleveland, Ohio, Haslett turned to Corporate Screening to investigate the backgrounds of each finalist being considered for this c-level position.
Resume Padding at the C-Level
While resume padding – or falsifying information to exaggerate or cover up one’s accomplishments – has been well-documented at the employee level, recent occurrences of untruthful or inaccurate resumes (including the omission of criminal information) at the executive level have vastly increased over the past decade. In 2006 alone, executives at such organizations as RadioShack, Bausch & Lomb, Veritas Software and even the U.S. Olympic Committee were discovered to have falsified or covered up negative records, leading to corporate investigations, shareholder scrutiny and negative publicity in the media once that information was discovered.
And that’s precisely where Carol Haslett’s job pressure comes into play. As the individual responsible for verifying the integrity of those final candidates for the high-visibility Cleveland leadership position through an executive background check, her biggest fear is overlooking or missing critical information which would prove detrimental to making a sound candidate recommendation.
Overlooked Background Information Spells Disaster
“I use Corporate Screening because I trust them implicitly,” admits Haslett. “They simply can’t make mistakes in what they do for my firm. Being wrong, missing information, overlooking details results in front page news.”
“Their analysts don’t just work nine-to-five for me,” she goes on to say. “They provide updates on a regular basis – even working weekends – so that I can turn around my work and report to my clients in the relatively short period that I’m normally assigned. In the Cleveland background investigation they even went in person to the courthouse to obtain records in order to meet my deadlines.”
Haslett appreciates Corporate Screening for “going the extra mile” in their background checks to present findings for the cases she requests. “Their investigators don’t simply give written information, they back up the facts with professional analysis,” she says. “This helps my work greatly since I have to present findings to my clients, and Corporate Screening’s insight substantiates my reports. From investigating a case and providing written reports to fully analyzing the data and discussing questionable patterns of behavior, their professional insight gives me great comfort.”
Haslett even notes that Corporate Screening’s background checks always eclipse the information that the media normally digs up, much to the dismay of television and newspaper reporters. “We’ll never make the headlines because of undiscovered background information,” she confidently claims.
“We’ve been using Corporate Screening for the past nine years,” comments Haslett. “We’re probably their smallest client, but they treat me like I’m their most important client. In my line of business I need someone I can trust, someone who understands deadlines, and someone who won’t leak what they find to the media. They’ve definitely earned my trust.”