Providing The Peace Of Mind That Comes From Knowing You Hired The Right Person: Private Eyes Inc.

In this highly competitive industry, enterprises face several challenges nowadays and one of the major challenges is human resources. Recruiting the right employee for the right job is one of the most critical tasks, and it has become more difficult with the emerging mobile workforce. Making a strong hiring decision, solely relying on candidate interviews doesn’t work.

To make things a bit easier for employers, pre-employment screening is considered to be a great option. It is a process of verifying the credentials of job applicants and makes sure whether they meet preconditions of employment. When conducting verifications, it should be established whether the applicant has concealed important information or otherwise misrepresented themselves.

Pre-employment screening is the foundation of good personnel security and today, many pre-employment screening companies are emerging and selling speed and savings; instant searches for a very low price. But in pursuit of low costs, they are compromising with the methodologies and are delivering not so great results; they may not be doing all the right things right.

Founded in 1999 with a mission to make a safe workplace possible, Private Eyes is one of the leading companies in the pre-employment screening space. By providing all the necessary and top-class screening methodologies, Private Eyes makes sure that their clients are hiring a reliable and loyal applicant. 

With a team of researchers who are tightly linked with local, state, and federal courthouses, Private Eyes always provides the most accurate, most comprehensive information possible. The company relies on its unique internal process, which checks information at six different touch points to reduce the risk of errors and assure quality. Also, it audits 100% of completed reports before sending them to its clients. And this is one of the reasons that out of the thousands of checks that Private Eyes performs each week, less than 1% are disputed by applicants.

In-Conversation with the Elegant CEO, Sandra James:

Q.What challenges did you face in your initial years? What can your peers learn from it?

Every business faces challenges at their initial stage and we were no exception. We had one large Fortune 500 client that was 70% of our volume, but after years of a great relationship they left because of a leadership change and it was devastating for the company. Today we have hundreds of clients and none make up such a large piece of our business.

Q.“Earning trust and respect of consumers all around the world is through consistent focus on delivering high quality in all actions,” how do you interpret this statement?

We believe in having integrity, being honest, and doing what we say we will. Whenever we make a mistake, we analyze it and put processes in place to make sure that it never happens again. We are ISO 27001 Certified, GDPR Certified, NAPBS Accredited and I have a Private Investigator license. All of these things make sure that our internal processes are followed to ensure Quality, Service, Fast to our clients on every report we do. 

When we talk about trust and respect, client satisfaction is one critical factor. We depend on client satisfaction; from the implementation of a new client to ensure we continue to meet their ever-changing needs as they grow and develop their businesses, and that results in decade long relationships.

Q.A company to be one of the most ‘innovative,’ its employees must think like innovators, employees need to feel they have a decent outlet for sharing their observations and ideas. Is this true with your company?

At Private Eyes, we have an open door policy, which provides a great environment for everyone to share their feedback regarding everything. I as the CEO along with my leadership team meet with each other and everyone from different departments; both individually and in group settings. We conduct meetings where everyone shares what they see and what will help them be more successful in their departments.

We do pilots and when they work we implement throughout the company. When it does not work in the pilot, we discuss and see what the next route is to take and reiterate. We fail fast so that there is no impact on our service level.

Q.What makes Private Eyes one of the most innovative companies and why?

We innovate all the time! As a mid-size company, we can still pivot and move quickly to make changes which allows us to innovate consistently and stay ahead of our competitors. We have the ease, the speed and can change accordingly. And I think these are some of the major factors that prove Private Eyes is one of the most innovative companies in the industry.

The Future Roadmap

Private Eyes has a very aggressive goal to grow 100% per year for the next 5 years. This is aggressive but the company feels that with the tools, technology and the right team in place, it can easily obtain its goal. “We are debt free and profitable which provides a solid platform for our already 19-year-old company. We are sustainable!” says Sandra James.

Looking into the future, Private Eyes has come up with a new technology that allows its clients to send a link to the candidate. It is designed in such a way that it works with all browsers and mobile devices, allowing the candidate to complete the information for the background check in seconds. This will save the HR/Recruiter time so they can do what they do best. A new feature is that the client can choose whether to have candidates or themselves pay by credit card when they make a background check request.

Meet the Leading Lady

Sandra James, CEO: Sandra is an entrepreneur with superior leadership and client management skills. She started her career at a very early age. After working her way through marketing and business development positions, Sandra established her own company, RMCR In 1989, which she then sold in 1998.

With her willpower and determination to establish herself in this competitive market, she founded Private Eyes, Inc. in 1999 and in 2010, her second company, 4506-Transcripts.com, which is now a bulk vendor for the IRS processing 4506-T Forms for mortgage lenders and banks.

“We CARE about quality and keeping our clients and us out of legal action. Therefore, we re-verify every hit before we report it. If you are using a company that is only providing data, this is an area of concern as they may not be verifying it to be accurate.”