Pre Employment Background Check Procedures

Don't skip pre-employment background screening

Everyone knows that one of the secrets to long term success in any organization is hiring the right people for the right job. Your staff need to be able to do their job competently and at the same time, fit in with the people that they will be working with. Having a solid employment background check procedure to follow when screening job applicants can be a huge benefit to you during the pre employment process.

Enhancing your accomplishments or lying on resumes to get a job is nothing new but it does seem to be getting worse as time goes by and as you might expect, it gets worse at times when jobs are scarce. Don't skip the essential and often simple, background checks that you should be doing to ensure you have an accurate and truthful assessment of the applicant who wants to work with you.

Make sure you get a waiver

You need to get a waiver form from your legal team for your candidates to sign. Inform the applicant that they are signing the waiver to give up their right to privacy in exchange for consideration for the post. The applicant must have the choice to say no even if it means that they can not apply for the job.

Background checks and reference checks

A reference check is not the same as a background check. Many people confuse the them or even believe them to be the same thing. Both are an essential part of pre employment screening however. The main difference is that reference checks involves contacting people that have worked with the applicant recently. You should check out at least three references if you can.

Background checks can reveal the authenticity of the applicants details and statements. Important for checking that the person hasn't been lying to you or leaving out important facts.

Consider the following when you draw up your employment background check procedure.

Court records, criminal records, arrest warrants etc.

Make calls to all the state as well as county court records offices in the areas in and around places where the person has lived and worked in the last few years. You can't check all the courthouses in the country but you should check the obvious places at least.

Motor vehicle licence checks

If the job might involve driving of any kind then you must see the drivers license and verify that it is valid with the issuing authority.

Credit checks

This is only likely to be relevant where the person might be required to work with financial or any other money related activity. If there is unlikely to be any such involvement then you could reasonably skip this check.

Appropriate licences

It's staggering to think that employers very often do not bother to check the validity of any required license that the employee holds. This happens even in respected professions like law and medicine. It's simple to check, just make the call.

Academic credentials

Sometimes I think that everyone except me lies about their academic achievements on their resume. They do it and get away with it because employers don't include it in their employment background check procedures and if they do then it usually gets ignored. You should at least check that the qualification claimed was in fact obtained by calling the issuing body ask asking for verification.

Use a public records database to get your employment background checks started

Most if not all the background and validation checks above can be performed easily by making a series of phone calls. It is however time consuming so why not start your employment background check procedure by searching an online public records database. This is a method of background checking that is super quick and could give you enough information to make a decision without picking up the phone or commissioning an expensive employment checking service.