I had the privilege of joining the Professional Background Screening Association (PBSA) as a panelist for a timely discussion in mid June 2026 exploring one of the most important questions facing employers, educators, governments, and learners today:
How do we ensure that background screening continues to build trust and evolve its practices while also creating fairer, more inclusive pathways into employment in an AI-enabled world for new graduates?
As Executive Director of the Groningen Declaration Network (GDN Network), I was struck by how much common ground exists between the credential recognition community and the background screening profession. Both communities are fundamentally concerned with the same objective: enabling trusted decisions that allow people to move confidently into work and further learning.
Founded in 2003, the Professional Background Screening Association (PBSA) is the leading global professional association for the background screening industry. It promotes ethical, accurate, compliant, and accountable screening practices, supports professional development, and advances standards that help employers make informed hiring decisions while protecting individuals and their privacy. As hiring becomes increasingly global, digital, and AI-enabled, the role of organizations like PBSA becomes even more important in fostering trusted employment ecosystems.
Listening to the discussion also reinforced how closely this work aligns with the vision of the UNESCO Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education. At its heart, the Convention seeks to make qualifications more transparent, fairly recognized, and portable across borders, ultimately supporting learner mobility and expanding equitable access to further education and employment. While our communities may approach these challenges from different perspectives, we share a common purpose: creating trusted systems that enable opportunity while safeguarding integrity.
Several reflections stayed with me following our discussion.
- Trust and access should reinforce—not compete with—one another.
Background screening exists to reduce risk and increase confidence in hiring decisions. Yet, if our processes are not regularly examined, they can unintentionally become barriers for capable individuals seeking their first opportunity.
As employers increasingly adopt AI-assisted recruitment, automated screening, and digital verification tools, we have an opportunity—and responsibility—to ensure these systems remain reflexive. Screening and hiring practices should be continually evaluated to identify where bias, outdated assumptions, or rigid requirements may unintentionally exclude qualified candidates.
The question should not simply be:
“How do we screen people out?”
Instead, we should increasingly ask:
“How do we responsibly screen people in?”
This mindset encourages thoughtful risk management while recognizing human potential and broadening access to opportunity.
- A digital footprint has become part of an individual’s professional identity.
Today’s graduates often begin building their professional reputation long before their first full-time position.
Digital portfolios, verified credentials, professional networking profiles, volunteer activities, open-source contributions, community engagement, and lifelong learning all contribute to an increasingly rich picture of capability.
This means learners need greater support in understanding that every digital interaction contributes to a broader professional narrative.
Helping learners develop healthy digital practices should become part of career readiness—not simply because employers may review publicly available information, but because individuals benefit from intentionally managing and strengthening their own trusted digital identity.
- Experience should not be the only signal of capability.
One of the recurring themes throughout the discussion was the importance of recognizing demonstrated skills alongside traditional employment history.
Many graduates face a familiar paradox:
“You need experience to get a job—but you need a job to gain experience.”
This is where the credential ecosystem is rapidly evolving.
Verified microcredentials, competency-based learning, work-integrated learning, apprenticeships, digital badges, portfolios, and other trusted evidence of learning can provide employers with additional signals of readiness.
When combined with appropriate background screening, these credentials help create a more complete understanding of an individual’s capabilities rather than relying solely on years of employment.
For organizations like the GDN Network, this reinforces the importance of advancing trusted, portable, digitally verifiable credentials that can complement—not replace—traditional hiring practices. Building confidence in these emerging forms of recognition is central to expanding learner mobility and accelerating pathways into meaningful employment.
- AI makes human judgement—and human connection—even more important.
Artificial intelligence will undoubtedly transform recruitment and background screening.
AI can improve efficiency, detect anomalies, assist with verification, and help process large volumes of information.
However, technology should augment professional judgement rather than replace it.
In fact, as AI-generated content, synthetic identities, and increasingly sophisticated forms of digital fraud continue to evolve, authentic human interaction becomes even more valuable. Face-to-face conversations—whether in person or through trusted identity-assured channels—provide opportunities to establish confidence that cannot always be replicated through automated systems alone. Identity integrity increasingly depends not only on stronger technology, but also on thoughtful human engagement.
Good hiring remains deeply human.
It requires context, fairness, transparency, empathy, and informed judgement—qualities that cannot simply be automated.
As AI capabilities continue to evolve, governance, accountability, ethical design, and trusted identity verification will become even more critical components of responsible hiring.
- Education is everyone’s responsibility.
One of my strongest takeaways is that responsibility does not rest solely with employers.
Higher education institutions, governments, professional associations, credential providers, screening organizations, technology companies, and international networks all have a role to play.
We need to better prepare learners by helping them understand:
- how hiring processes work;
- why background screening exists;
- how to build a trusted digital identity;
- how verified credentials and microcredentials can strengthen employment opportunities;
- how AI is changing hiring practices; and
- how lifelong learning contributes to career resilience.
When learners understand the system, they are better positioned to navigate it successfully.
- Networks accelerate trust.
One of the strengths of participating in conversations like this is the opportunity to learn across sectors.
Organizations such as the Professional Background Screening Association (PBSA) provide an important forum for advancing professional standards, sharing emerging practices, and fostering dialogue around ethics, compliance, innovation, and workforce trends.
Likewise, the Groningen Declaration Network (GDN Network) continues to serve as a global network of networks that brings together governments, higher education institutions, employers, technology providers, quality assurance agencies, standards organizations, and innovators to advance digital trust, trusted credential ecosystems, learner mobility, and more seamless pathways between education and employment.
No single organization can solve these challenges alone.
The future depends on connecting expertise across sectors, jurisdictions, and disciplines so that trusted digital recognition systems and trusted employment practices evolve together rather than independently.
Looking ahead
As digital credentials, AI, and new forms of evidence continue to reshape hiring, our challenge is not simply to modernize technology—it is to modernize trust.
The UNESCO Global Convention reminds us that transparency, fairness, quality assurance, and international cooperation are foundational to enabling mobility. Those same principles are equally relevant as we rethink recruitment, credential verification, and employment screening in an increasingly digital world.
Our collective challenge is to build systems that remain rigorous while also being inclusive, transparent, evidence-informed, and responsive to changing labour market realities.
Ultimately, our shared goal should be simple:
To ensure more people can move rapidly into work and further learning through trusted systems that recognize not only where they have been—but what they know, what they can do, and what they are capable of becoming.
I am grateful to the PBSA team and my fellow panelists for such a thoughtful conversation. It reinforced that digital trust is not built by technology alone. It is built through collaboration, shared standards, international cooperation, education, and strong networks that connect people and ideas across sectors and borders. Those are values that both PBSA and the GDN Network continue to champion, and they will become increasingly important as we collectively shape the future of trusted learner and workforce mobility.
References
PBSA: https://www.thepbsa.org/
GDN Network: https://groningendeclaration.org/
UNESCO Global Convention: https://www.unesco.org/en/higher-education/global-convention
About the Author
Joanne Duklas
This blog post represents the opinions of the author. The Groningen Declaration network assumes no responsibility or liability for the content or accuracy of this post.