It has become an arduous task to find the right people who can work for you. Every person is good at something, but you will have to determine if they are the right fit for your tasks. Not only that, you also have to make sure that they mix up well with other employees in your organization and enhance productivity. To ensure that no wrong person is hired into your company, you need to carry out a comprehensive employment background check procedure every time you hire new workers.
You’ll be surprised to know that despite being a simple process, checking the background and references of a prospective employee is done poorly, and in some cases, not done at all. Checking the background of a person tells a lot about him/her and confirms the things that they have told you at the time of the interview. A few discrepancies in the salary amount and/or total experience won’t do any harm, but if there are multiple discrepancies in the statements made by the person and the information gathered by you during the background check, then that’s the red flag for you.
Get consent for background checks
Before you start with the background checks of a prospective employee, make sure to get consent from the person in writing that you will obtain all the necessary information from his/her previous employer(s) as a standard procedure. It is best to get the consent letter prepared by a legal expert to avoid any issues later on.
The difference between a background check and a reference check
Many people often confuse background checks with reference checks, but both are different things. Checking someone’s background to check who they say they are, verifying their documents, searching for any criminal records and any other information that they may have conveniently forgotten to tell you. On the other hand, a reference check is the process of speaking to people who have had a business relationship with the candidate in the recent past.
Things To Cover In Employment Background Check Procedures
Court Records
You need to check with city or state court records in all the places that the person has lived or worked in the past few years. With this, all the criminal records or arrest warrants associated with that person would be uncovered. You can also widen your background checks to adjacent cities and towns to be double sure. If you don’t find anything suspicious regarding the person, then that’s a good sign.
Motor Vehicle Checks
If you are hiring a person to drive any kind of vehicle to deliver goods from one place to another, then you must check his/her driver’s license whether it is valid or not.
Credit Checks
In case the job involves making financial transactions on a regular basis, then you should carry out a credit check.
Licenses
If the profession is highly respected, then employers may ignore to check the licenses required to operate in that profession. As a result, employers are forced to work with an unlicensed employee and bear all the inconvenience that comes along.
Academic Achievements
It’s quite baffling to know that so many people lie about their academic qualifications to get top positions in top organizations. This is done easily because employers don’t run a background check on them, but you don’t make the same mistake. Acquire copies of the education qualifications of the person you intend to hire and verify them with the college or university to confirm if he/she has really done those studies.
Use Public Records To Get Fast Background Check Results
You can quickly do the background check with the help of a website that gathers public records, which include criminal records, sex offender records, arrest warrants and any other information that you wish to obtain about the candidate. Although the information on public records websites is not 100% accurate and you can’t rely on it fully, it gives you a sense of the idea that there might be something fishy about the person and that you should carry out more checks on the person before hiring him/her.
Using these steps will definitely help you carry out background checks in a better way. If you don’t have time and money to invest in this tiring task, then you can hire professionals who will carry out employment checks and screening for you. The motive for you is to hire trusted and professional employees in the companies, so even if it costs you a few bucks extra to run background checks on prospective employees, don’t hesitate because, in the long run, it’s all worth it.
