Not all background screening processes are identical in scale, depth, or emphasis and can vary greatly based on a particular organization's location, industry, or priorities. For this and other reasons, we recommend formulating company-specific screening goals for your organization to ensure you’ve adopted hiring policies that fit your needs.
Most pre-hiring investigations search for a criminal record and confirm a range of information disclosed on a candidate’s resume: past work experience, education/professional licenses, and more. Some organizations extend their screenings to explore credit history, driving record, social security verification, and more.
In this article, we’ll explain how background checks work, what they aim to investigate, and how working with a qualified background screening provider can support responsible hiring, onboarding, and long-term success for your organization.
Keeping Compliance in Mind
Regulations regarding background screenings vary greatly at local, state, and federal levels. For this and other reasons, we advise organizations to work with an accredited professional background screening provider to avoid unintentional privacy violations or infractions against the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) or other legislation that dictates the terms of legal searches and investigations of job candidates. Later, we’ll highlight the types of information that must remain inaccessible to employers for legal reasons.
Criminal Record Screening
Background screening invariably involves a criminal record search intended to unearth any candidate convictions for violent offenses, sex crimes, identity theft, embezzlement charges, and anything else that would categorize the candidate as a risky hire. Sometimes certain criminal offenses are placed under heightened scrutiny based on the industry in which an organization operates. For example, an organization in the financial sector would be wary of hiring a candidate with an existing record of embezzlement, money laundering, identity theft, or other related crimes.
The ultimate goal of criminal record screening is to protect customers, employees, and the financial and legal well-being of the organization. As we explore in our related article on employment background screening for education, a comprehensive background screening process mitigates the risk of fielding a negligent hiring lawsuit in the event that a newly hired employee acts irresponsibly on the job and causes harm of any kind to fellow employees.
The Orsus Group provides robust criminal record screening, completes criminal database searches, and investigates healthcare sanctions and excluded parties lists. When applicable, we expand our investigations to include international criminal searches and county and federal civil court searches. We can also provide occupational health screening that includes drug testing and health screenings, using partnerships with clinics across the United States to make the process expedient and convenient for candidates, employees, and employers alike.
Employment History
In addition to criminal record screening, many background screenings also involve investigating and verifying a candidate’s past employment. This is an effort to confirm a candidate’s resume claims regarding former positions held, institutions worked for, duration of employment, job title, and more. This type of investigation can quickly reveal inaccuracies in an applicant’s stated work history. In conjunction with education verification, employment verification ensures that a candidate is well-suited to perform the duties of the open position and possesses the necessary experience to excel. By expediently verifying this information, organizations ensure that more qualified candidates can be contacted for interviews in the event that a primary candidate has been dishonest about their employment history.
Education and Professional License Verification
A qualified background screening provider should also provide education verification and professional license verification. This is especially necessary for positions that require advanced degrees or specialized licenses to complete job tasks at a high standard (for safety or other reasons). Employers that attempt to conduct education verification independently often wait weeks to receive all of the necessary information from educational institutions. In the process, they risk losing the interest of other qualified candidates who were under serious consideration.
The Orsus Group helps organizations bypass long waits and processing delays by quickly verifying degrees earned, attendance dates, and more. In the event that a candidate has an international educational history, we use our International Education Verification service to locate and confirm all necessary information. We also work to swiftly verify a candidate’s licenses (medical, law, or otherwise).
Professional References
If a job candidate has provided professional references as a part of the application process, it’s important for employers (or their background screening provider) to speak with each reference about a candidate’s past job performance, skills, character, and contributions to their former employer.
When an employer wants to investigate listed professional references, The Orsus Group’s Background Check Specialists contact a candidate’s professional reference to conduct a thorough interview and obtain information about a candidate’s job performance, character traits, strengths, and areas for improvement.
Additional/Optional Background Screening Services
In addition to the major background screening services we’ve already explored, some employers seek to investigate the following:
- Credit History – This is an especially common practice in the finance industry where financial responsibility with accounts or large sums of capital is paramount. Employers should be aware that 11 states have banned or restricted employment-related credit history investigations. For this reason, employers must be familiar with local and state laws regarding this practice before conducting credit checks on job candidates for their organization.
- Driving Record for Vehicle Operators – As with credit reports, this tends to be an industry-specific check for those who will be responsible for operating vehicles or heavy machinery as part of their job responsibilities. Driving records can yield information regarding DUIs, suspensions, tickets, or other safety violations that could influence a hiring decision.
Exceptions
Remember that employers may be barred or restricted from reviewing certain details of school/education records, medical records, military records (unless voluntarily disclosed), or aspects of criminal history that have been sealed or expunged. In some states, there are access limitations to criminal records based on how much time has elapsed since the last criminal conviction. Again, this is the value of working with a qualified background screening provider: to help your organization avoid legal missteps while still formulating an extensive understanding of a candidate’s suitability for employment.
Streamline Background Screening with The Orsus Group
Conducting a comprehensive background screening without professional support can be an overwhelming, costly, and time-consuming process that is accompanied by the legal risks of noncompliance or negligent hiring liability.
That’s why the Orsus Group offers robust background screening services to provide you with a complete picture of a candidate’s suitability for an open position within your organization. Whether it’s criminal record searches, education screening, professional certification screening, or international services to collect hard-to-find information about a candidate, we quickly provide everything you need to make an informed choice for your organization. It’s time to enjoy peace of mind about your hiring choices and sustain high ethical standards that keep your organization legally protected and productive.
Ready to quickly simplify your background screening process to find and vet the best candidates? Contact us today to let us know how we can support you.