What Stuff Does An Employer Look At During A Background Check

Hither'southward What Employers Look for When They Run a Background Check

What practice employers look for in a background check ?

When it comes to the pre-employment vetting processes, every employer volition arroyo things differently, depending on their size and resources, their manufacture, and the job or jobs they need to make full. At that place are many types of groundwork reporting services an employer tin order, all of which provide different data types from diverse sources. Generally speaking, a pre-hire investigation will cheque for a criminal record, verify resume information, such as by employment, educational credentials, and professional licenses or certifications. Peradventure appraise other types of information, such as a driving record or credit history.

Read on to acquire more than about what shows up on an employment background bank check.

The Employment Background Check

Employers run history checks on their candidates for various reasons. For instance, by reviewing a person's criminal past, a hiring manager can assess the level of risk that a candidate might pose if given the job at mitt. In some cases, a person's criminal by may fifty-fifty preclude them from working a specific type of task, such as a registered sex offender interviewing for a educational activity position. On the other hand, verification checks of employment, pedagogy, and credentials are an essential step for helping employers make up one's mind whether their candidates are qualified for the job at hand.

What Employers Tin and Volition Look At

Below, we have recapped the nigh common types of employee background verification, as well as the kind of information each of those checks will typically return. Exercise note that, while employers are typically immune to consider the information highlighted below equally function of the pre-employment process, that privilege is not absolute. Employers must follow the tenets of the Fair Credit Reporting Human action (FCRA) when conducting searches, which include very detailed steps for obtaining a subject's permission before looking into their past.

Likewise, the specific laws and regulations surrounding the data in each category may vary depending on country or local jurisdiction. Nosotros have highlighted checks that tend to be more regulated and, therefore, limited.

Work history

Work history is 1 of the meridian items that hiring managers consider when assessing candidates for a vacancy. The thought is that someone'south employment experience can offer a expert sense of how qualified they are for a particular job. Some jobs telephone call for candidates to have a specified number of years' experience working in a specific industry or type of position. In other cases, employers will not be well-nigh as particular about work history. Yet, they will withal consider employment history to determine what skills or easily-on experience applicants may bring to the chore.

Employment verification checks piece of work differently than many other types of groundwork checks. No database tracks where people accept worked over the years. While candidates self-provide this data on their resumes and/or job applications, verification checks are an opportunity for employers to vet that information for inaccuracies or falsehood—an important pace given the commonality of dishonesty on resumes.

Since there is no job history database, these checks e'er involve direct contact with previous employers. At backgroundchecks.com, we contact past employers on behalf of the hiring team to verify key information on the resume, such equally dates of employment and job title.

Credit check

Some employers consider a candidate'due south credit history as role of the pre-employment check process. These types of checks are prevalent in finance-related jobs, such as cyberbanking or stock trading, to assess a candidate's fiscal habits. Some employers believe that, by evaluating how a person handles money in their personal life, they volition know how to grade that person's overall fiscal responsibility in the professional realm. A credit check that reveals poor credit tin can sometimes be a sign of risk for an employer filling a function involving accounts, handling money, or other financial matters.

Employers should tread advisedly when using this type of screening, still. While financial literacy and responsibility are essential skills for some jobs, there has been some fence in recent years about how much insight a candidate's credit record can lend to this type of position. Medical bills, unemployment, and particularly student loans are factors that can touch a person'south credit detrimentally. Particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused substantial spikes in unemployment rates nationwide, disqualifying someone for bad credit may be seen as only exacerbating the problem.

It is also worth noting that credit assessments for employment purposes are illegal in some areas. In eleven states – California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington – plus several other jurisdictions (including Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia), employers are heavily restricted in their ability to use credit screenings when making hiring decisions. Employers should exist aware of their local and state laws when considering this type of assessment.

Criminal records

Criminal searches are the cornerstone of most verification processes. These records can include "red flags" such equally violent offenses, sex crimes, embezzlement convictions, DUIs, or other history that could render someone a risky hire. Employers will expect for this type of information to protect their legal interests, as well as their customers, other employees, their finances, and more. For example, an employer hiring for financial accounts and sensitive personal information would want to avoid hiring a candidate with a history of embezzlement or identity theft, lest they take advantage of their position to commit similar crimes. Employers who overlook this type of relevant criminal history in filling a task may confront negligent hiring lawsuits if the person they rent ends upwardly facing further accusations for their behavior on the chore.

At backgrounchecks.com, we offer various criminal searches, including a county check, a state repository search, a federal court search, and an instant search of our proprietary multi-jurisdictional database.

Reverse to popular conventionalities, there is no single, central database for criminal information. Records nearly criminal charges or convictions are often filed at the county courthouse level. Still, they may likewise be filed at U.S. District Courts (in the case of federal crimes) or reported into state repositories (in the case of country records searches). We recommend a multi-faceted criminal exploration, incorporating canton checks in places where the candidate has lived recently. We as well offer searches of our United states of america OneSEARCH database, which includes more than 650 one thousand thousand criminal records from all 50 states and all U.S. territories.

Driving record

When hiring for jobs that involve operating vehicles, employers will often include driving tape checks as office of their candidate vetting process. While motor vehicle history is not relevant to all jobs, information technology is one of the most critical metrics for delivery vacancies, trucking jobs, positions that involve operating heavy construction machinery, and other similar types of employment. A history of unsafe driving – from lots of speeding tickets to suspended licenses and DUI convictions – is a safety and liability risk for employers filling these types of positions.

References

Though sometimes confused with employment verification checks, reference checks serve a different purpose. Employment verifications decide whether resume data is accurate, while professional references are people who can speak to a candidate's character, job functioning, skills, and overall work style. Often, employers will ask that candidates list two to three references as office of the job application. Reference checks involve contacting those individuals directly to learn more most the candidate.

Verification Checks

Beyond piece of work history and references, verification checks can too check a person'due south educational credentials and professional licenses. Education checks involve contacting a college or university to verify that a candidate attended, as well equally dates of attendance, degrees or certificates received, and whatever honors attached to those degrees.

Professional license verifications ensure that a person holds the license(s) necessary to piece of work in a specific field in a item state. Examples include teaching licenses, licenses to practice law, nursing licenses, or licenses to do medicine.

What Employers Cannot expect At

While dissimilar types of employment groundwork checks can reveal much information well-nigh a candidate, there are sure types of information that employers are not allowed to access—even as part of checks that might seem to reveal that information. Examples include:

School records

While education verifications will betoken whether a candidate earned the college caste they claimed on their resume - these checks won't show a full schoolhouse record. Employers won't know which courses the candidate took, for instance, or what grades they received. School records from further back—loftier school, for example—are besides non accessible to employers.

Armed forces records

In that location is no blazon of history checking service available to private employers to access a person's military record. While candidates may voluntarily offer data about their armed services service, if applicable, employers should not plan to vet that information, check for details about a person's military history, or look for evidence of discharges.

Medical records

Much of the information gleaned through an employee or candidate investigation is technically part of the public record. Medical records practise not autumn into this category: they are private documents, with privacy ensured past doctor-patient confidentiality. Employers should not expect to learn nearly medical history through background screening.

Criminal history

While criminal history is at the middle of many pre-employment vetting protocols, that doesn't mean employers have free reign to admission or brand hiring decisions based on the total scope of a person's criminal record?. Records that have been sealed or expunged, for instance, should not feature on a check report and cannot be used to bar a person from employment. Many states also take laws that restrict the use of arrest records in hiring, that specify a criminal history lookback period of seven years, or both. Employers should accept care to learn the laws of where they do business to avoid whatever compliance problems in how they use criminal details in their hiring decisions.

How to Set up for an Employment Background Check

Asking "What practice employers look for in a background check?" is a smart strategy for job seekers wishing to gear up themselves for the employment screening process. Hither are a few steps that candidates can go on in listen to avoid whatever surprises:

Understand what previous employers might say about y'all

Reverse to widespread supposition, most employers will stick to answering only simple indicate-of-fact questions when chosen for an employment verification cheque. Job titles, employment dates, the reason for leaving, eligibility for rehire: these topics are objective talking points that Hr managers are willing to reply. More freeform questions, such as a past employer's comment on character or piece of work ethic, are challenging territory. HR managers or quondam supervisors will often pass up to reply them to avoid legal claims of defamation from their previous employees.

Obtain your records

Job seekers concerned virtually the verification process are oft encouraged to run investigations on themselves. At backgroundchecks.com, we fifty-fifty offer a self-check service. This strategy provides an opportunity for a candidate to run across their record and go a preview of what their hiring director will see. Running a self-check can exist a valuable way to make sure that an expungement has gone through or but to achieve peace of listen.

Check your credit

Like a self-bank check for criminal history, a self-check for credit can give a sense of what employers might run into and what conclusions they could depict from that information. Job seekers will sometimes utilise these self-assessments to determine if they demand to provide any explanations about their history that may aid provide context for less-than-flattering results. Note that every consumer is entitled to a free credit report from each of the three credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) each year.

Frequently Asked Questions

What tin disqualify a chore candidate on a background check?

The respond to this question volition vary from one employer to the next. Factors such as the manufacture where the employer operates, industry regulations, state and local laws, the job in question, specific company policies, and fifty-fifty the leniency of individual hiring managers can affect the reply. The almost common disqualifiers in the vetting process tend to exist either severe felony convictions (violent crimes, sex offenses, etc.) or blatant dishonesty of the chore seeker. These factors register as "ruby-red flags" almost no matter the industry or company. However, as previously discussed, other factors can be disqualifiers every bit well, depending on the task—such as a history of unsafe driving, for jobs that involve driving, or bad credit, for financial-related positions.

How does a groundwork check verify employment?

At backgroundchecks.com, we conduct employment verifications by contacting a candidate'southward past employers and asking key questions well-nigh employment dates, job titles, and other information.

What can be revealed in a background check?

A "groundwork check" is, in fact, multiple checks or searches of various data sources, intending to provide a detailed and wide-reaching view of a job candidate'due south past. A pre-hire screening company tin cheque a person's criminal by, driving history, past employment, education, and professional person licensing. Information technology also includes references, civil court history, accost history, Social Security Number, aliases/alternate names, credit, bankruptcy history, social media presence, and more.

Michael Klazema

About Michael Klazema The writer

Michael Klazema is Principal Marketing Technologist at EY-VODW.com and has over two decades of experience in digital consulting, online product management, and technology innovation. He is the pb writer and editor for Dallas-based backgroundchecks.com with a focus on human resources and employment screening developments.