There are plenty of capable, hard-working and ambitious people out there who are waiting for an opportunity to put their skills to good use. Sadly, there are a lot more unqualified and downright desperate people, as well as people who have a history of violence or just good old laziness and bad work ethics. An employer would be wise to implement some precautions to ensure that only the right people get hired. A comprehensive background check will ensure that there is very little room for error when hiring employees, but there are certain things you should bear in mind when looking into your applicant’s information.
1. Don’t rely on background information provided by the applicants
Trusting other people is a pretty noble thing, unfortunately a few words on a piece of paper mean very little these days. People will lie to get something they want, and when it comes to providing for one’s family there is very little someone won’t lie about. Be sure to double check all the information on job applications.
2. Inform the applicants about the background check and its implications
Just so that everything is nice and clean from a legal perspective you will want to inform potential applicants that you perform background checks before giving anyone the job and explain what this check will entail.
3. Make sure you aren’t stepping on anyone’s rights
The law will be different from state to state and you want to be absolutely sure that you aren’t breaking any rules or infringing on your potential employees rights in any way. The last thing anyone needs is a big lawsuit, so make sure to consult a lawyer about what you can and cannot do.
4. Make sure you cover all the basics
The three basic things you are looking for are: a criminal record, behavior on previous jobs, credit history and a verification of credentials. These are things that will give you a good idea of what type of person you are dealing with. Be sure to check social media profiles as well – they can tell you a lot about a person.
5. Use the opportunity to look for good candidates
A standard background check is used to weed out bad candidates, but this doesn’t mean that you won’t stumble upon some pretty good characteristics when performing checks on certain candidates. If someone has plenty of good recommendations, a particularly useful skill set, a lot of experience or is a very responsible and loyal employee this things will show up during the background check – be sure to shortlist such candidates.
6. Put in the work and dig a bit deeper
There are people who have built successful careers on some pretty outlandish and easily verifiable lies, just because no one bothered to check a few facts. All such stories eventually end in the person being fired, but not before years of his or her incompetence have done considerable damage to the company or organization.
7. Contact former employers
To get a feel of what kind of employee someone is you will need to go to some of the former employers and ask around. This can be done easily enough over the phone or through e-mail. Just remember that bad work experiences are left out of resumes, so if there are any major gaps between two jobs it something that you should look into – maybe that person was fired for bad behavior and omitted this fact on purpose.
8. Look for professional help
In the end, if you are new to all of this or simply wish to ensure that everything is done thoroughly and by the book you can hire the services of a firm that specializes in performing background checks on employees. Since you want to be sure that the applicants are right for the job, but want to avoid litigation it is often a good idea to outsource this type of work.
When it comes to employee background checks it is important to be thorough, but careful as well. Be sure to follow the law and not overstep your boundaries and invade people’s privacy more than is absolutely needed to avoid frauds and ensure that you are hiring a good worker.