These days an employer cannot be too careful when hiring new employees. Gone are the days when employers could place loads of trust in their employees. The modern approach to hiring employees typically involves extensive background checks to determine as much about an applicant as can be made known to an employer before going ahead with the hiring process. Background checks may now be conducted both online and offline. Personal background check sites can also help with uncovering valuable information about someone’s past. For this type of service, all that is needed is a person’s name, email address, or phone number. The following are some steps that an employer should not allow to go overlooked during their investigation into the background of an applicant for hire.
Check Their Online Presence
One of the first steps an employer might take, when looking into the background of a potential employee, is to look for this individual on social media sites. The way a job applicant represents themselves online can tell an interested employer a lot about how an applicant thinks, behaves and interacts with others. Most importantly, it will often reveal if such individuals exhibit an ability to be responsible, trustworthy or if they have undesirable traits that would not fit well into the employer’s business.
Check for Criminal Background
If an employer is concerned about hiring a person that may turn up to have a criminal record, then it is a good idea to purchase a level-two background check on an applicant to be sure. Generally, a level-two background check will report if an individual has been involved in criminal activity for the last seven-years and, in some states, as far back as 10-years. If an applicant’s record has been expunged, it may or may not show up on a background check. Also, an applicant will generally not be required to disclose that their record has been expunged in most states.
Consider investing in a third-party service to handle this step. It will take a lot of time and resources to get a candidate’s criminal records if a hiring specialist needs to go to the police department in person. Hiring a third-party record checker will make this process more efficient and cost-effective and enable the specialist to check more candidates at the same time.
Verify Their Identity
When performing an investigation into the background of a potential future employee, it is important to make sure an employer has the proper identity of the individual whose background is being investigated. By using identity resolution software, this approach can help an employer to obtain proper name matching and matching individuals by other relevant personal information too. This is especially important when trying to isolate an individual with a popular name, such as “John Smith”, for example, on social media sites where literally hundreds of individuals may possess that same name.
Verifying Education
As an employer, it is easy to get so caught up in checking into a potential hire’s criminal background that this could distract from looking into their educational background. It is important to make certain that a job applicant meets any degree or certification requirements for the job in question. Failure to conduct a proper check into the educational experience of a job applicant could lead to a host of undesirable problems down the road.
After conducting an extensive investigation into the backgrounds of numerous candidates, you will be much more able to select the highest quality candidates. Without the proper background checks, hiring new employees can be a scary time of uncertainty as you hope you’ve made the right choice. With the right steps taken before hiring, however, you’ll be confident in your employee’s ability long before they start working.
