Considering hiring someone who's wanted by police? Do this first.

Q: We've just learned that our very best applicant for a hard-to-fill position has an outstanding warrant against her. My business partner says this immediately rules her out of consideration, but I'm having a hard time accepting this.

This candidate has all the skills we've been looking for, along with a truly charismatic personality. She could do great things for our business. I'm hoping you'll say something that I can pass on to my business partner to get him to agree to keep her in the running while she resolves this situation.

A: Before you and your partner make a final decision, ask your candidate to explain what the warrant is for and why it's outstanding. Warrants may be issued by multiple agencies for behavior covering everything from felonies to the failure to appear for traffic violations.

An individual's failure to have responded to an outstanding warrant may signal criminal behavior, a character flaw, disrespect for laws and regulations or be the iceberg tip of a serious problem. If any of these prove true, I agree with your partner that you don't want this applicant, even — and especially — if she's charismatic, a quality true of both awesome individuals and con artists. Be especially cautious if your candidate blithely excuses herself, "Oh, I tossed those parking tickets in the back seat and forgot them." Do you really want to hire someone that disorganized for an important job?

If you keep this candidate in the running, you'll want to conduct a deep background check, along with the standard reference check. Previous employers may tell you about problems that didn't result in legal action; for example, some employers agree not to sue embezzlers if they're repaid in full.

Although Alaska's Court View (www.courtrecords.alaska.gov) gives you initial information, if your applicant has spent time in another state you'll want to check that state's court records as well. If you discover problems, or don't trust the answers you're receiving from this candidate, re-advertise and find a new best applicant.

Q: I've supported myself and my kids for three years by cleaning houses. Five months ago, I got tired of turning potential new clients down and decided it was time to hire one or two cleaners to work for me. So I got a business license, opened a company bank account and made two hires. Both were women I knew well from working out with them at the Alaska Club.

It turns out one's a thief.

At first, I didn't believe it, because some of the people we clean for throw amazing things away and when we take them out of the trash there's always the risk they'll see us wearing or using these items and claim we stole them.

But my client, who's been my client for more than a year, contacted the police and apparently my new employee did steal. Now my client's suing me. I can't believe it, as I'm not the one who stole. I reminded her that I've cleaned her house for a year, am a young mother struggling to support myself and have suffered from this, as she and two other clients dropped me for what I DIDN'T do. The conversation turned ugly and I admit I screamed at her.

What do I do – besides never hire anyone ever again?

A: Your clients trust you with access to their homes. When you hire employees, you say to your clients: "This person represents me. Since you trust me, you can trust that I wouldn't bring anyone into your home who would steal."

You say you knew both new hires well because you worked out with them. Did you conduct background checks on them? If not, you breached your clients' trust. Over the years, I've used Alaska's Court View to check out potential house cleaners and found a surprising number of them have theft records.

Here's what you do. Realize that you're both a victim and someone responsible. You need to own responsibility when you have it. Call your former client and apologize, both for screaming and for giving a thief access to her home. Ask her if there's some way, short of a lawsuit that won't recover much for her, to work this out.

Meanwhile, my hat's off to you for supporting three kids and starting a business. You've learned a painful lesson but you've got grit. Good luck.