[neatdesign]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who's hearing about this for the first time.

I don't even necessarily have a problem with outsourcing this sort of work. My problems are mainly three-fold:

1) There was no logical reason for me to contact Capital One's HR before submitting my job application, because historically all anyone ever needed to do was provide the contact number(s) for their former employer(s) for the purpose of employment verification. Luckily for me I'm a former employee -- but what if I was a current employee? How do I find out this information without letting on that I'm looking for something else?

2) Capital One's HR didn't tell me that the service involved a fee before I forwarded the information to my potential employer. Not only that, but the HR dept reps themselves didn't even know about the fee until I TOLD them about it! If the HR reps don't know about it, how the heck are current and former employees supposed to know about it!?

3) Now that there are fees-for-verification services, it raises the question: Who is assumed to have to pay the fee? On one hand, it makes sense for the job applicant to pay it, because they are the ones who are looking for a job. On the other hand, the employers are looking to hire and fill a position, and they can probably allocate part of their budgets to pay for this sort of thing. This is such a new phenomenon which obviously isn't that well-known, so the etiquette questions haven't really been discussed, much less resolved. Unfortunately it puts both the job applicant and employer in a delicate position.

~ Jenney