Why a Basic Background Check Isn’t Enough for Employees

Human Resources Managers are charged with a weighty responsibility: selecting and vetting candidates for open positions within the company. When you stop to think about it., that’s arguably one of the most important ongoing decisions anyone can make on behalf of an organization.

Why the employee selection process is so important

Every employee hired will impact the working environment – for better or worse – and will represent the company when interacting directly with customers, vendors, suppliers, and the public at large.

Choosing a great employee can lead to positive outcomes in all these areas, and impact a company’s bottom line. But choosing a poor employee, especially when doing so is avoidable, can result in a catastrophe.

Why You Can’t Skip the Background Check

Making the wrong hiring decision can mean wasted time, money, and resources during the orientation and training process, as well as lost productivity in rehiring for a position until you find the right fit.

Choosing the wrong employee can also result in irreparable harm if that person brings criminal activities, unethical practices, or dangerous tendencies into the workplace. Far beyond wasting time and money, selecting the wrong employee, in this case, can result in costly lawsuits, theft, and potentially devastating damage to the business’s brand and reputation. Ultimately, your company will be responsible for any criminal negligence.

How does obtaining a background check help?

The idea of checking into a candidate’s background probably isn’t foreign. Statistics show over 86% of HR Managers rely on some level of background check when making hiring decisions, and 69% of all employers routinely perform background checks on every job candidate.

This fairly straightforward step in the interview and hiring process provides a layer of protection for the company, and helps confirm the information provided by the candidate on their application. It also allows employers to fill in some blanks if the candidate has chosen to omit some less-than-savory details.

However, this valuable tool is only effective if it’s a comprehensive background check, and that’s where many employers fall short.

The importance of a comprehensive background check

If your employee screening process consists of a bare bones review of the candidate’s criminal record in your local area, along with a handful of strategic Google searches to see what sort of shenanigans they’ve gotten into over the last few years, you are likely missing a lot of important information.

A broader, more thorough background check takes into account relevant history to provide a complete picture of a person’s actions and trends including:

• Verifiable education and employment history
• Thorough criminal history investigation
• Financial sanctions searches and/or criminal financial searches*
• Up-to-date motor vehicle records

Comprehensive assessments also incorporate data from a wider geographical range (up to and including international searches) over a longer period of time. With this level of data, you have a better chance of isolating a key piece of information and/or collecting enough to sense patterns and draw effective conclusions about whether or not a candidate is the right fit for your organization.

The Secret to Building Proper Background Check Policies and Procedures

Choosing the right employee screening partner

We understand that sticking to a quick and simple background check procedure can seem like an easier, quicker and more economical solution, but it is not worth the risk of hiring someone whose past actions don’t meld with your company rules or philosophy. Working with the right partner will save time and money in the long run by making sure you have a comprehensive screening of every candidate.

A professional employee screening partner will have the tools, skills, and experience to perform the kind of in-depth background screening described above and keep the process streamlined and stress free. When looking for the right partner, make sure to ask these questions:

• Are you FCRA-compliant?
• Are your result reports easy to read and understand? Reporting sources (i.e. county, state and federal courts,) often use different descriptions and acronyms for criminal charges, convictions and sentencing. The right background check partner will deliver reports that don’t require you to have an attorney on retainer to help you to interpret the results.
• Do you have capacity to coordinate additional screening? Extra screenings like drug screening, skills assessments and behavioral assessments can provide additional insight, especially if you are on the fence about hiring someone.
• Do you provide live support? Being able to call or send an email to your background screening company, and get a quick response, makes the difference in getting the information you need at the right time to make the best decision.

NationSearch is an FCRA-compliant employee screening service focused solely on conducting background verifications that are designed to be easy, and effective for applicants and employers alike. We customize the background check process to ensure the results are always specific and relevant to your company needs.

We know the employee background screening process can be confusing, stressful and time-consuming. We make the process seamless by providing efficient, timely methods and delivering critically accurate results.

If you’d like to take the next step and implement a more comprehensive background check, contact NationSearch today to discuss your options.

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* Credit checks are steadily being phased out of the hiring process by tightened regulations. Currently, employers can only use a credit check if the applicant is making over $75,000 a year and/or applying for a position that has direct interaction with other people’s finances (banking industry, mortgage lending, etc.).