Long story short: The company I’ve consulting with has been interviewing candidates for a few IT positions. One of these is a customer service-type, no degree required. Well, one of the candidates is claiming a GED (General Equivalency Diploma), that is, they did not graduate high school but got the equivalent through their state’s testing organization.
As you may know, most companies have procedures for checking college degrees, and I do understand this process. Bit what I have no idea of is, can a company access some sort of state database to determine if someone does in fact have a GED?
No big hoo-hoo here, I just got asked because she was from my home state. I just had to plead ignorance.
But it did get me thinking, how would one go about verifying this? The company is not interested in looking at a cert, they want verification from the agency. FWIW, the state is Florida.
I can’t tell you if you are permitted to request a copy of a person’s GED directly from an authority, however, you can require that they bring in their diploma verification. In Colorado, the state is in charge of that sort of thing, and a person can at any time order a new copy of their degree, including test results. I’d suspect that other states follow a similar procedure.
AFAIK, there is no central, nationwide registry since each state administers the test and issues the certificate according to its own policies. However, the applicant can sign a release, and the state will send verification that a certificate was issued.
The website is here. They do not have information on how a potential employer can check, but there is a number listed.
And if you want to be sure of its authenticity, have the applicant request that the copy on the transcript from the state agency be sent directly to you.
You can verify it by asking the place that issued it. You don’t want to verify the document by asking the applicant to do it. They can fake a verification as easily as the certification. You didn’t suggest the last, but someone did.