Performing a background check allows employers to make the most informed and confident decision possible when hiring a prospective employee. Whether the information gleaned from a background check is clean or incriminating, having complete and verified data makes deciding whether to advance candidacies or halt them, much easier – saving you future trouble. Either way, a background check is hugely beneficial to employers navigating the hiring process.
This valuable screening tool benefits employers ranging from smaller care providers to larger corporate institutions which are becoming more cautious in their hiring procedures. Maintaining the quality and standard of their hiring practices is crucial to growing a productive and secure workplace.
The Details You Need to Remember
Understanding the importance of background checks, when to use them and how the workplace environment can benefit from them is essential to any successful business. In all likelihood, requiring a background check on any job application will likely dissuade candidates with something to hide from applying. Implementing these types of screening procedures will ensure secure and dependable applicants as well as hires.
The process provides detailed information on the applicant to ensure the most reliable hiring, possible. It is important to remember:
- Background checks are beneficial to employers who want information on applicants like criminal history, credit reports or verifying their identity.
- Most professions that involve working with – or caring for – children, the disabled or the elderly will require comprehensive and detailed background checks.
- Potential employers might use the internet to observe a candidate’s life, history and perspectives.
- Job seekers have to be mindful of what they post on social media, so as to avoid adversely affecting or limiting their job prospects.
- Employers can also hire a third-party firm – or private investigator – to conduct background checks, making the hiring of potential employees easier and more secure.
Mandatory Background Checks
Industries with safety-sensitive positions are, especially, important as those who hold them could pose risks to themselves and to those around them, if not properly vetted. Industries that involve personnel working with children, the elderly or the disabled are more carefully vetted to protect these more vulnerable groups from horrors like kidnapping or abuse. A teacher, for example, must have a clear criminal record and verifiable information to secure the position, otherwise it can put those students at risk.
For the impact it can have on your business or your clients; employers must take special care when hiring someone, which is where background checks are tremendously helpful. All this will limit the risks and liabilities associated with making potentially negligent hires. An employer is responsible for the safety of their business and are held accountable for all the information they have – and do not have – on a potential employee.
From financial and health to education and legal; there are many industries that provide work that requires a full understanding of who the applicant is, what their qualifications are and what their experience is. A doctor, teacher, lawyer or even potential CEOs and CFOs can be safety-sensitive positions that require proof of professionalism, proper conduct, experience and stability.
Some Industries Rarely Perform Background Checks
Hospitality and retail are examples of industries that have a high turnover rate. Industries with high turnover rates tend to perform fewer background checks as applicants may not be looking for long-term employment. Although most industries conduct in-depth research into the viability and trustworthiness of a candidate; industries with high turnover rates will typically conduct a check made up of publicly accessible government data and social media. This can give some indication of the candidate’s history and an opportunity to see their views or beliefs in the open but, it is not verified.
The depth – or use – of a background check is dependent on the industry in question and the nature of the job. Records that provide the demonstrable evidence of a candidate’s potential benefits or risks can include: driver’s licenses, criminal records, credit scores, medical records, personal and character references, past employers, insurance information, property ownership and many others. This can be a considerable amount of work which require services, time and money. Hiring someone who cannot make drinks to bartend creates fewer liabilities and less danger than the hiring someone convicted of fraud as a cashier or a possible terrorist into the military.
Signing Waivers
An applicant for a job may be required to sign a waiver before the employer initiates an in-depth background check on them. To maintain the dignity and rights of the applicant, signed waivers and consent of the owner are required to retrieve education, military or medical records. Employers can also explore information about the candidate’s former employment, including dates of hire and termination, conduct, salary or incentive-related information.
Another option for companies who do not ask for waivers to be signed is to perform in-house background checks using the services of a private investigator or another third-party agency. This is especially useful for companies working in specific areas that require different types of background information and collection. However, bad credit ratings, bankruptcy records, interviews with character witnesses and other related data, still require a disclosure to the candidate before the consumer reporting agency collects and releases that information.
Important to Consider
A company may also make use of internet searches to perform their own background checks. A simple Google search can yield a mountain of information from a candidate’s social media and internet activity at a time where they have likely let their professional guard down. Applicants should think carefully about any potentially inappropriate or offensive pictures, comments or posts they may make on platforms like Facebook or Twitter. An applicant’s social and communication skills are on display on the internet and religious, political or other controversial topics should be communicated with care.
In general, thinking more carefully about how a background check may be conducted on you – and what it may find – is an important step in applying for any job. Hiring an agency to conduct a background check on you before navigating the job market can be a good way to ensure you know what information will be uncovered. More importantly, it gives you an opportunity to correct inaccurate data in things like credit reports or court records. Not to mention, informing your former employers, neighbours and associates that they are listed references and may be contacted for more personal information by prospective employers is vital.
Better Safe Than Sorry
In this technological age, we know that background checks are becoming a staple in more and more professional environments. It is better to be prepared for them rather than allowing an ambush by a potential employer, leaving you powerless and embarrassed. Consider yourself a ‘product’, ‘service’ or ‘brand’ that you would like an employer to invest in; creating a ‘brand’ that will benefit you when an employer does some digging into your background.
