Career Page Restrictive Duplicate Checking and the Application Hard Stop Option

Overview

Updated 09/23/2022

What is Restrictive Duplicate Checking? We improved the Duplicate Checking in the Career Page Editor of AviontéBOLD, by adding the ability to specify if ALL or ANY duplicate checking criteria need to be met in order to be considered a match and (if enabled) trigger Application Verification functionality. These changes were done to address a common misunderstanding of whether or not the duplicate checking criteria needed to ALL be met to be considered a match, or if ANY of them are met it is considered a match. You can choose what you intend for the behavior to be. We continue to develop and improve our duplicate checking feature to be as robust and useful as possible. This feature has already undergone early adopter testing.

Chapters System Setting Location Within Application Duplicate Check & Verification Settings - Detail     Duplicate Check Field     Duplicate Criteria Setting     Application Verification  Possible Scenarios / Explanation Header     Sub-header

System Setting - No restrictions

This feature is available to all clients; it is active by default.

Location within the application

Restrictive Duplicate Checking is a part of the Careers Page Editor, which is a Utility in AviontéBOLD.

• For the main Careers Page Editor article, click here

To navigate to the Careers Page Editor, follow these steps:

1. If not already logged in to AviontéBOLD, do so.
2. Select Utilities from the Account & Settings menu.
3. Select the Careers Page Editor.
4. Scroll down to the Duplicate Check & Verification Settings area.

Screenshot: Duplicate Check & Verification Settings area in Careers Page Editor

Note: The settings can be applied to a particular job board, but they can also be applied to the "General Apply" job board.

Duplicate Check and Verification Settings - Detail

Duplicate Check Field

Options:

• Either Mobile or Email - This option can be used to broaden the active range of duplicate checking to include both mobile number and email.
• Email - this restricts the function to using only email when checking for duplicates. Emails are used to receive application verification codes.
• Mobile
• Use Last Name
• Use SSN (Social Security Number) - three options:
  • Full SSN
  • Last 6 SSN - the system will detect matches on the last 6 digits of an applicant's social security number
  • Last 4 SSN

Duplicate Criteria Setting

This defines if the criteria "Any" or "All" are met before an applicant is considered a match to the existing talent in the system.

• Any - the system will find duplicates more easily; any of the chosen criteria will be used by it to detect duplicates.
• All - a more strict setting that will only find duplicates when all of the chosen criteria have been met. 

Application Verification

• Off: The system will not perform any action regarding application verification when duplicates are found.
• On: The system will send the user an email (based on the one in their file) that contains a verification code to ensure they are unique. The applicant needs to enter this code on the application page.
• Hard Stop: The system will display a message (which can be customized in the area below) to the applicant. The purpose of the message should be for the applicant to contact your agency office directly. The system will then halt proceeding with the current application. The message is blank by default; it needs to be filled out.

The message is entirely customizable, but the following would be a recommended example:

"It looks like you're trying to apply for a job using an email, phone, or social security number linked to another user!

Please contact the staffing agency for assistance.

Alternatively, you can complete a quick apply here: [the form accepts links; here you could post an internal link for your quick apply option if that is set up]"

The form has a rich text editor to work with so you can design and craft a message to look exactly the way you wish. It supports links to external sites, so if you want to link applicants to your public web page, you could also do that. You could also include a link to your terms and conditions and/or privacy policy if that is desired. The form also supports images.

If you wish to use this option, the message should convey that you believe the applicant already exists in your system and you would like them to contact you directly before proceeding, in order to verify their identity and handle any duplicates. You will then need to verify whether or not the applicant is a duplicate manually.

Possible Scenarios where this feature can be useful / Further Explanation

• Applicants with Refugee status.
• Applicants that share information, because they are siblings, for example.

Some of our clients reported that after an applicant is started on a job, the information used to apply (email, phone number, etc.) wasn't unique to the applicant. Subsequently, another applicant may apply to the same job site, and their information matches what was provided by the first applicant. The system overwrites what was provided by the first applicant, so their job assignment is no longer valid. The active talent is the one overwritten. The client for whom we developed this feature expressed the desire for this overwriting not to occur.

This occurs when applicants with a prior relationship help each other out by providing emails or phone numbers to each other (between brothers, friends, or roommates, for example) when the other person does not have an email or mobile number. Sometimes entire families will share one email address and/or home phone. The other person applies for a job with the "borrowed" email or phone number and gets one. Later, the actual owner of the email or phone number tries to apply for a job with the same agency. 

When applying to the agency with their information, the system may recognize it (from the previous applicant, who borrowed the information to apply) and overwrite the existing account profile with the entered information. The previous applicant's information will be replaced. If there are more than two applicants applying to the same agency with the same or similar information, the system chooses which record to overwrite based on the first match it finds, so this can become especially troublesome. The original record that provided the information could be one that gets overwritten.

To prevent this from occurring, if the system detects a duplicate, the system will halt and ask the applicant to contact your agency directly. This feature is enabled by the Hard Stop option.

Recruiters can then review applicant information and verify any duplicates, and the nature of the duplicates. Recruiters can reach out to applicants to verify if they applied with information that wasn't theirs, and help them acquire unique identity information so that they can proceed with it (their own email, phone, etc.). Then the new applicant can be told to re-apply, and the system should intake them without overwriting any existing information.

Some clients have chosen to approach this by enabling strict duplicate checking on particular job boards, while allowing their General Apply to have looser duplicate checking criteria.