Want to discover a revolutionary technology that could redefine your hiring process? Brace yourself for an enlightening chat with Raj Ananthanpillai, founder and CEO of Trua. We delve into the intricate details of Trua, the game-changing all-in-one digital identity and screening solution. We'll dissect the unique features of this non-regulated solution and how it's transforming background checks and fraud prevention. Be prepared for a fascinating journey as we unravel how this technology harnesses the power of blockchain for privacy and data protection, and the role of the Trua Score, akin to a FICO score, in simplifying the background check process.
And that's just the beginning! We'll also shine a spotlight on how Trua’s cutting-edge tech plays a pivotal role in streamlining recruiting and hiring processes. Gain a deeper understanding of how Trua’s ID verification can result in significant time and cost savings for employers and recruitment agencies. Listen closely as we explain the intelligence behind the Trua Score that provides continuously updated, verified data, revamping the hiring practice. By the end of the episode, you'll have a clear picture of how this transformative technology is shaping the future of background checks, identity verification, and hiring processes. Time to step into the future of recruitment with Trua!
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Want to discover a revolutionary technology that could redefine your hiring process? Brace yourself for an enlightening chat with Raj Ananthanpillai, founder and CEO of Trua. We delve into the intricate details of Trua, the game-changing all-in-one digital identity and screening solution. We'll dissect the unique features of this non-regulated solution and how it's transforming background checks and fraud prevention. Be prepared for a fascinating journey as we unravel how this technology harnesses the power of blockchain for privacy and data protection, and the role of the Trua Score, akin to a FICO score, in simplifying the background check process.
And that's just the beginning! We'll also shine a spotlight on how Trua’s cutting-edge tech plays a pivotal role in streamlining recruiting and hiring processes. Gain a deeper understanding of how Trua’s ID verification can result in significant time and cost savings for employers and recruitment agencies. Listen closely as we explain the intelligence behind the Trua Score that provides continuously updated, verified data, revamping the hiring practice. By the end of the episode, you'll have a clear picture of how this transformative technology is shaping the future of background checks, identity verification, and hiring processes. Time to step into the future of recruitment with Trua!
Listen & Subscribe on your favorite platform
Apple | Spotify | Google | Amazon
This is William Tin Cup and you are listening to the Use Case Podcast. Today we have Rajan from Trua. He will be learning about the business case, the cost-benefit analysis or the use case for why his prospects and customers pick Trua. So let's do some introductions. Raj, would you do us a favor and introduce both yourself and Trua? Hey, good morning, William.
Speaker 2:My name is Raj Anand Thanthalai. I'm the founder and CEO of a company called Trua. Trua is an all-in-one digital identity and screening solution company, primarily targeting HR, recruiters, safety and security in marketplaces and so on and so forth. We've been around in different forms of companies. Trua is a spin-off of another company called Mdera, which was a spin-off of another company called InfoSense. We've been in that business for over 20 years.
Speaker 1:And are we within the four walls of the US or are we doing international? Right now, we are predominantly in the United States.
Speaker 2:Right, and do you? Oh, go ahead, no, finish your sentence. It's like fishing in Pacific Ocean it's a big market.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if it's more specialized it gets small, which is great, because then you can get dominant faster. Do folks put you in the background check, background screening category, or do they put you in a different category?
Speaker 2:We are actually a new generation. If you think about today's background check industry, 99 plus percent is regulated. That means they have to adhere to FCA rules and FTC and EUC all kinds of regulations. We are the very first solution that is non-regulated in the sense that it's an all-in-one, as I said, digital identity and screening solution, streamlines background checks and fraud prevention processes for HR departments. The beauty of that is it eliminates Because of the data is first verified by the candidate it eliminates dispute and adverse action process, further reducing regulatory burden and legal risk for companies and HR departments.
Speaker 1:A few questions. One is I love that you're managing risk managing, fraud managing, Because that's been, it's historically been why we use background checks in the first phase. So I want to make sure I understand this is pre-hire and if so, do you ever foresee this being post-hire, meaning something that goes and continues on with employees? One of the things is funny.
Speaker 2:You should ask because our other company, endera, has been in the post-hire workforce risk management. We've been around for five plus years and we've got Fortune 50 companies using our software for post-hire. One of the questions that came along is hey, you guys do it very well and it's a non-regulated approach. You have anything for pre-hire? Because we could not use that for pre-hire because the consent and the review of the data was not performed by the individual. So within that and all the breaches that was going around back in 2017, 18 timeframe, we started putting our heads together to develop this new platform called Trua, which first lets the consumer or the individual or the applicant verify the data. So Trua score, we call it, is always current, like a FICO score. It's always current. So you don't have to do post-hire risk or pre-hire, you don't have to deviate that. So you start from recruiting all the way to full lifecycle of the employee or the candidate. So that's how we do it.
Speaker 1:It sounds I don't know if it is or isn't but it sounds like something that could be done on blockchain, where again everything is verified, again eliminating the fraud. But I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole if it's not blockchain now or later.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It took the world right of mind. Our technology, our system is built on a blockchain ledger. We use the security features of the blockchain ledger, so here's what it is right we let. The Trua primarily is built with privacy and data production by adheres to stringent data privacy and consumer protection laws and regulations.
Speaker 1:And they get to control that, whether or not they gave access to that or not.
Speaker 2:Yep Ensuring the personal information is handled appropriately and securely. So the way we approach to data minimization only the necessary information is collected in your", minimizing the risk of data breaches or identity theft. It powers the individual to verify it. That way there is no dispute for HR managers. So giving them full control over the level of information that they want to share. For example, if you are in the gig economy and for trust and safety, they're hey, they're looking for just criminal information, right, you just share the criminal information. You don't need to share any civil infractions or civil issues or any other information that you have.
Speaker 2:But typically what happens in a traditional background check? You get a 30, 40, 50 page report and then the HR department has to sift through all of that and it could be a hot potato because every state has different regulations. Think about it right California, new York and all kinds of regulations. Hey, if this is a type of misdemeanor or a felony, you cannot use that for any hiring. If it's more than five years old, or 10 years old, depending on the state, statues and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:So we have taken all of that and codified and put into the system which is saying okay, we have a three-dimensional decision matrix. For every event that individual has, it says, okay, time, type of event or recency. And then we map the sentencing guidelines and also the state statues and federal statues and say, okay, what does this state say? Oh, you can use this. I'm just using this as an example. This person had a shoplifting event six years ago, right In certain states you cannot use that if it's more than two years old, or two years old, depending on the state.
Speaker 2:So we apply all of that, the morass that people have to go through and say, okay, this is the curated event that adheres to all of the state regulations and laws, and then you can and, by the way, the consumer has already verified it and then you can use it. So the hiring becomes fast. And then say, okay, and the gig economy has 60, 65 million people in the gig shared economy. They're looking for jobs. They have change changes every two months, three months. They have to constantly keep giving this so they could have this in their wallet if necessary. And then say, hey, I already have my stuff and here's my criminal verification, here's my professional license verification if that's what education verification and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we saw was there are a lot of static stuff in an individual, like your degree, your credentials in a professional license and so on and so forth. They are predominantly static other than for annals or disbarment and things like that, but predominantly static. But still, every time you look for a job, you do a background check. They have to check that over and over again. Why? It's a huge nonsense, in my opinion.
Speaker 2:Only thing that changes is your code tracker. You could be arrested, you could have some issues and so on and so forth. So we focus on some of those data and we call it deterministic data Means it is for sure belongs to you. That is what we always work on. That's why most of the if you look at billions of dollars of legal litigation that's going on is because of these due process and wrongful attribution of data to a certain individual Right. We clean that all up. That's why we got five plus patents on these things and we've been doing this for over 20 years, just trying to determine the data that belongs to the individual.
Speaker 1:So a few questions. Let's start with keeping up with the data. Is there certain things that the individual that has to keep up with if they change their cell phone or their address, or maybe they change their mind on different permissions, et cetera, and is there certain data that's just starting to mind from outside data sources?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is always current, right, because right up front we disclose everything and it's current. And then when you share this data, by the way, none of the underlying data is ever shared. That's what is. We put in a blockchain, all of the raw data, so that nobody can touch it except you as an individual. And then what is shared is hey, you don't have like a truascore. For those who want to look at that, it's on our website, truameacom. It'll show you hey, this is the score. Okay, this says okay, one or more criminal events if necessary. And if you click on it, it'll tell you oh, it was a minor misdemeanor or whatever. It is jaywalking, right, you can make that decision if you want. And the individual has turned that feature on. They can turn it off any time and for every share, okay yeah, it's not just all in one Every time they want to share with an employer or somebody else.
Speaker 2:They can do that the first time they need to be sponsored by somebody in this case usually because today it's all B2B so they get sponsored by a company and then they can take it with them for the rest of their likes and it's always current and if they change their phone number or email or whatever it is, they're all verified and then updated.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I think you mentioned safety and if you did, I wanted to ask you do we keep track of accidents or work claims, et cetera?
Speaker 2:It depends right. We go with all of the deterministic data, Got it. If you're objective, we don't want to bother with that. That's why we get social media data, because that could be just garbage. Most of it is yeah somebody could be ranting, that doesn't mean that person is wrong, has done something wrong. So we look for deterministic data, probabilistic data. We can get to it, we have it, but that needs a little further evolution.
Speaker 1:Where do we fit in with the recruiter workflow? So, as they're going through their process, obviously they're sourcing, they're going to find the candidates. Once they find the candidates, then recruiters do their bid, and I'm assuming this is somewhere in that process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of two things. Right, as soon as here's the best part. Right Because it's a newer product that's been in the market. The truos could have been in the market for a little over a year and the truos ID, we just launched, just the ID piece alone, a month ago. Right, because when we talked to the banks they said hey your identity verification seems to be very compelling.
Speaker 2:The reason why we did that was when you are presented with code record. It is so intimate. We want to absolutely make sure you are who you say you are. That's why we went through that process. And then they say, hey, that ID process, or ID verification process, is very compelling and that gave us an idea to just separate that out. So what happens is within the employer base, the employer sponsors they say, hey, the recruiter says we got to do plus customers right now. But they say, hey, I'm going to hire somebody, go get this truos code and they go through the process and it is shared and they come on board. That's one process. The second process, when they can advertise, for example, this is where the future is. They can advertise that, hey, for this position I need a bachelor's degree, two years of experience and a truos code of I'm just making this up 325 and above and that can say if you want to get your truos code, put a link there and then they get it.
Speaker 2:They get the truos code and they can be reimbursed for that, obviously. And then they submit the scope If they know. If it's not 325, or let's say this person had a criminal record 290, they're not going to apply for the job. And then the recruiters already made it clear they don't have to deal with this hot potato. It's, oh my God, because you cannot score ban the box in 32 or 36 states. You cannot ask the candidate if you have a criminal record until and after you offer them a job. Let's assume you pick a candidate, go through the interview, pick a candidate, spend 8 to 10 weeks in trying to come to a candidate or candidates, and then you do a background check and then that's where happens. And then you have to justify is this criminal record relevant to the job? Right, oh my god, this is so much burden on HR people, right? Instead of fun? You get it done, right? Hey, you verify and let us know, boom, almost all of them will self opt out. Hey, I'm not going to be qualified for this job.
Speaker 2:So, what's the price?
Speaker 1:What's the price, Raj? What's the pricing model? Not pricing per se, but I've seen these kind of priced out in different ways.
Speaker 2:Yep we are trying to standardize that right. Today, a background check can go from a cheesy internet search, which is nothing which is a scam, actually, in my opinion to a real good close to $200 sometimes, depending on what you want to check. You want to check driver's records, mbr, professional licenses, all kinds of stuff, right, we just focus on what I call the 80% case. Right, 80% of the employers need the set of minimum criteria Verify the name, date of birth, social, and then address history seven years address history that will give you if this person has moved from one county to another county, if they committed some crime in another county that you're not aware of, right? That's why we collect the address history as well. And then the criminal, civil, professional license verification and anything else you want to do it. So that's all there. It's depending on the volume and whatnot.
Speaker 1:It's in the $50 to $75 range, depending on the depth of that Dumb question, art Raj, but how do we know that person filling that out is actually that person? The reason I ask this question is recruiters will sometimes tell me about fraud stories where they're hiring an engineer. They take them through skills tests and all everything behavioral assessments, the whole bid only to find out that the person that was doing all that is not the actual person that's going to show up. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what?
Speaker 2:The first day of work? Oh, you mean you. This is a For an example. Most background checks do not do identity verification.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Especially in this day and age when there's a lot of remote hiring is happening.
Speaker 1:And they are.
Speaker 2:No remote hiring.
Speaker 2:They have the lookalikes or pictures and they show their face once and so on and so forth. Right, and then it's all a thing. The key to avoid that is perform identity. Today, in the background check, world identity verification is an afterthought. What we do is right up front we verify the identity which is proof their government issued ID and then we do a liveness detection of the individual. You can't just say this is a driver's license picture, because we say, okay, show us a liveness picture.
Speaker 2:We detect the liveness of the individual and then we verify the social, the data bird, the address, seven years worth of address history and then we present it to them, all of their criminal court records or civil court records. And then, if they have a license, the requirement like it's a driving license, not driving license, professional license for something a hairdresser or a CPA or whatever it is and we verify that. And then it's part of your profile and the profile is only macro attributes, are disclosed. None of the underlying information is ever disclosed. And now they say, hey, you were sponsored by IBM, I'm just using that as an example and then go ahead and share it with them. You have verified and you shared with them the affiliation. We make the connection and the employer gets it. They get a portal of all the people that have truer scores and it gives them a view quick view, of who the scores are changing and whatnot. And then that's how we go through the process.
Speaker 1:I love it. Okay, so let's do some buy side questions for the practitioners listening. One is your favorite, or your team's favorite, part of the demo. Like you, when you get them to this part of the demo, you know that they're going to aha moment. Whatever, you know that they're going to really fall in love with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very simple. And we start oh, you do identity verification. Yes, sir, okay, a RIS man, and we do that right off the bat. It's a very simple process. And then we give them a score and say, hey, you don't have to rat, you prey, because we give you criteria. What is a 320? It's just like a FICO score. You know what a 600 or 700 or 800 means?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And that's how you design the benefits of the loan or the interest rates and so on and so forth. And we are talking to a very large what I call a job board. For example, right, they want to attach this to all of their candidates on their database. That way, if they are talking to employers that say, hey, I want a candidates with a 350 and above, because this is for financial or the finance department, for example, right, oh, this is for the shop floor. Okay, I can live with 320. So we give them the criteria that, hey, you don't have to worry about all of those things.
Speaker 2:If it's a 290, what does that mean? So it's just like looking at the score and say, wow, I don't have to deal with walking on eggshells if this person is going to sue me because I didn't ask this question or I asked them this question or anything, nothing of that, because it is absolutely non-regulating. And this is especially good for medium and small businesses, even more because they can't afford to have a compliance department. They're probably a front-office person is the one doing all the recruiting and hiring, sometimes right, so that this is even more Compelling for some of those people who don't have a compliance department, even those who have compliance department. The biggest part is, in fact, I wrote an article for Forbes.
Speaker 2:You'll see that you can reduce your business insurance, see right right because that's where the, the hiring practices, liability insurance or whatever comes under, literally goes to zero.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic, okay. So questions people buying identity verification for the first time, or maybe not for the first time. What are the questions that they should be asking you and your team?
Speaker 2:Hey, how does the? How do I know the candidates going through the process? That's usually the question that we get. They spawns, they send an invite. It's calling mutation process. They send an invite. Hey, there's a link, we are ready to make you an offer in the meantime, get your truest course, so we know back right. And then, by the way, we protect your privacy and blah, blah, blah. It's a good thing. It's a good attractive tool for Attracting candidates. Oh, this employer really respects my privacy. Think about that. Right, people usually use this to to penalize or this or that right, you're yeah yeah, be making it easy for them to say okay, this person really respects.
Speaker 2:I don't need all of the information because I'm still not an employee. Yes, when you become an employee, you have to give your social and other personal information right to get on the payroll but until then, you're walking around with all these hot information and personal data. Look at the employers. Oh, I don't have to worry about all of that.
Speaker 2:You don't have to worry about storing any of that. So those are all. Every step we have. It's a very simple step. Every step we go through, people say whoa. I don't have to do this, I don't have to do that. Yep, yep, yep. So five minutes or so, right, and you send them today and it's available Next day, depending on if you have to go through a paywall state where they take 48 hours to send back some information. But other than that, most of it we do it pretty fast.
Speaker 1:And no cost to the individual.
Speaker 2:No cost to the individual as the individual is trying and unless the employer says that we are almost ready, to sign up a customer. We've been talking to them for a couple of months. They have a couple of thousand contractors.
Speaker 2:That and say hey, being part of our platform, you have to get your truest code. That way we can next time when we have a, when we send you to different job site. It's easy that way. You don't have to keep doing this over and over again. And it's a value that for this particular company, because they say, hey, I am giving you a pre-wedded candidate right off the bat and they're ready to go tomorrow. It works for both people and the candidate.
Speaker 1:Because you've been doing this so long and without naming names or any of that type of stuff. What are some of the horror stories that you've seen or heard of around identity verification?
Speaker 2:We have dead people, which is a case tree that we did with a very critical infrastructure. A dead person walking around with that brother's identity and the badge Wow Looking at a facility. I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1:It's very, god, wow it's about.
Speaker 2:They gave us about 50,000. We did a pilot for them and it just blew my mind. I said how the heck this can happen. So that's where there are some people that complain hey, my identity is not going through. Okay, is your driver's license valid, or is it? You're faking somebody else's right, so they try to pull a fast one sometimes, right.
Speaker 2:Once you go through this in general. I always believe that in general, people want to do the right thing. Right, I agree. Unfortunately, the society and the environment sometimes screws it up and builds the mistrust. So I'm a big believer that give the individual the opportunity to own their own data.
Speaker 1:In that scenario, raj, it would be really the ethical dilemma of if that employee was a high performer, okay, all the things that we stated and covered, but what if we found out that employee was one of our best salespeople? Let's just say then what do we do? I know the easy answer is we got a long go, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh, you mean if they had an issue, right? Yeah, a post hire issue.
Speaker 1:Post hire yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you're a company policy, right. If you're a company, hr, manuals, I know, I know, because this is a good example you brought up right. Financial services are a big deal, right? Yeah, so I always tell right, what are the? What are you most interested in? A financial compliance, financial issues and so on and so forth. Okay, if somebody gets a DUI for example. I always say that that person probably did a million dollar deal, had a party right and then he got pulled over. You have to make that judgment.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And arbitrarily. You can't just say if you have a DUI or out. But regulatory issues could potentially make that happen and good point the regulated industry is always an issue. That's why I am trying. This is a stepping stone in trying to get the regulators off of these kinds of reasons. Why the regulators came in is because think about it.
Speaker 1:Today it was arbitrary.
Speaker 2:No background chakra identity verification. What happens is you are not part. You as an individual is not part of the process. Employer works with a third party background check company and they say, hey, we are going to hire this person and they send a link to this person, fill out this form and then collect all the personal information and the employer and the third party are communicating amongst themselves. You are left out. I say when you are brought into the equation, you can eliminate 3000 pages of regulation from all the books and save yourself a lot of money, time, effort and legal risk.
Speaker 1:And from the candidate experience perspective, the candidate gets something, they understand what's going on, they've given permission, they feel more important or more empowered, more part of the process.
Speaker 2:It's an easy process. Oh, this company really likes me and they're giving me this option that I don't have to share all this. But every time you give out your information, cringe sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What happens to you? You're under the process, you're not getting a job.
Speaker 1:They still have the data. Yes, and what does the?
Speaker 2:company have to do. Oh my God, they have to retain because EUC comes in and says why didn't you hire this person?
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:In this case, you don't have to do anything.
Speaker 1:Right, well, raj, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on. I actually love what you've built and are building, so just thanks for coming on and explaining what you're going to go on.
Speaker 2:Thank you, william, this is great. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and thanks for everyone listening Until next time.