How To Ensure You’re Hiring the Right Resource

How To Ensure You’re Hiring the Right Resource

The hiring process is fairly cumbersome and business owners are always worried about hiring the wrong person. Making amendments to the system can often be daunting, but with some changes in the right direction, you can improve your hiring process. Many of these steps won’t cost you much, but they’re worth the money because they allow access to a better pool of services to ensure you’re hiring the right resource:

Evaluate Resume

While many companies filter out most likely candidates through their resumes and CVs, the process isn’t as reliable as one might imagine. Some estimates suggest that nearly 40% of people lie on their resumes. These can range from small exaggerations to some major false claims. Many people will exaggerate their achievements at a previous organization as an employee or manipulate the truth about their technical abilities.

There are also major instances of people making false claims about their education as well, with fake educational history being one instance.

Check Up with References

For numerous jobs and parts of job applications, people have to offer some kind of reference that employers can reach out to. Not reaching out to these references to confirm the validity of these claims is one of the most common mistakes people tend to make. Many people reportedly add false references, while others might modify some of the claims in the reference to make themselves more presentable.

A person talking to an employee’s reference.

Numerous employment history check services will reach out to references and employers and get the information that you need.

Run Background Checks

Once you’ve shortlisted potential candidates, you must do your due diligence as an employer and run a background check on the shortlisted individuals. Depending on the nature of the job, there might be numerous things you’d want to look into that might make a client ineligible for a particular job.

For example, if you’re hiring an individual for a job that involves any finances and they have any negative records involving money, it’s better to reject such a candidate for a more reliable option.

Protect your business from falling into the wrong hands by ensuring you’ve got the right people for the job. With HR Preferred, you have access to the relevant resources for the task. We provide address history search services for employers, employment verification services, education verification services online, professional license verification service, driving history record check services, medical background checks for employers, and more. Reach out to us today.

The Ethics of Background Checks

Ethics of Background Checks

Considering hiring new employees? The process is a lot more complicated than you’d imagine, especially with how people often conceal or even forge data and information to improve their chances of employment. While everyone deserves the right of employment if they’re eligible, the employer also deserves to know the truth. That’s where background checks come in. Here are some aspects to be aware of regarding ethics and details:

Legal Challenges

Considering it can affect a person’s chances of employment, and future employability, there are numerous legal challenges that await a business in the process of background checks. Background checks involve looking into sensitive, personal information that requires due diligence and attention to proper protocols for the best results.

The nature of these records can range from educational, medical, and even criminal history. It’s necessary to ensure that rather than discriminate against someone, you’re only looking for legitimate issues with a potential candidate. If you’re unable to follow any of the legal regulations, you could potentially face legal trouble from the other party.

Why Background Checks are Necessary

As a business owner, your goal is to ensure that you have the best people on board. Regardless of any optimism about people changing, it’s common for people to repeat the same behaviors, which makes them a liability to any establishment. Depending on the kind of work they’ll be doing, a candidate’s poor behavior or inability to show good judgment in the past can be questioned, and is a valid reason for rejection after employment background screening services.

A person creating search profile.

Many candidates try to hide these issues from their potential employers, which is a bad practice, making services like education verification services online so vital.

Why You Need to Work with The Right Company

As a business owner, you should only work with businesses that do legitimate work for background checks. Many companies claim to do the work legally or have a great deal of experience, but in reality, they either get the information by illicit means or don’t actually produce accurate and updated records.

Considering you’re spending so much already in the employee acquisition process, it’s always worth the cost for hiring professionals that provide legitimate, reliable results.

Make sure that you take care of the ethics while handling background checks. With HR Preferred, you can have professionals take care of the job. They offer address history search services for employers, employment verification services, education verification services online, professional license verification service, driving history record check services, medical background checks for employers, and more. Get in touch with them today.

3 Great Reasons to Background Check Your Employees

Background checks help verify the information provided by the candidate

Did you know that 53 percent of job applicants provide inaccurate information? This isn’t an exaggeration; these are outright lies about education, ability to perform, and previous employment. Most resumes and cover letters contain omissions, false states, and errors which costs employers to lose as much as 72 percent of negligent hiring suits. Here are a few significant benefits of running a background check for your employees:

 

Continue reading “3 Great Reasons to Background Check Your Employees”

6 Elements Employers Should Look For When Running a Background Check

6 Elements Employers Should Look For When Running a Background Check

Growing companies need to hire human capital frequently, so their output demands can be met by the additional input. When new employees are regularly introduced into an established company, maintaining the organization’s culture can be challenging. Each employee has individual personality traits that may or may not match the existing workforce. This is why the management of every company needs to run pre-employment background checks and make sure the company’s work environment doesn’t get disrupted by new hiring. Here are some of the main elements you should look for when screening a potential job candidate. Continue reading “6 Elements Employers Should Look For When Running a Background Check”

Drug Screening on Employees – Weighing the Pros and Cons

Weighing the Pros and Cons of Drug Screening on Employees

Hiring committees need to fulfill many pre-requisites before welcoming a new employee on board. From their educational background to their criminal record, everything has to be checked so the culture of the business organization can be maintained. Inefficiencies in such background checks will not only make the hiring process non-reliable, but it can also impact the morale of your current employees. Drug testing is also an integral part of the initial pre-employment background checks that help the management hire suitable employees. Here are some of the pros and cons of running drug tests on employment candidates you should know about. Continue reading “Drug Screening on Employees – Weighing the Pros and Cons”

6 Common Mistakes Employers Make During the Recruitment Process

6 Common Mistakes Employers Make During the Recruitment Process

The process of hiring a new workforce can be stressful for the management as well as the HR employees. Mistakes are common to occur due to complications and mismanagement. This has a direct impact on the quality of output of the organization. Most of these mishaps happen when the organization’s management does not realize the importance of HR functions. By formulating preventive strategies, many of these mistakes can be avoided during the recruitment process. Continue reading “6 Common Mistakes Employers Make During the Recruitment Process”

What is an Applicant Tracking System, and How Can it Benefit Your Company?

What is an Applicant Tracking System, and How Can it Benefit Your Company?

Conducting the employee recruitment process manually can cause a lot of inconvenience to both the employers and the candidates. The initial pre-employment background checks can take weeks or even months to complete at times. This wastes the valuable time of each party and makes the HR executive’s job more difficult. Due to these and many other reasons, modern employers are using applicant tracking systems. Here are what this system does and its various benefits. Continue reading “What is an Applicant Tracking System, and How Can it Benefit Your Company?”

70 million Americans have a criminal record – Where are the records?

70 million Americans have a criminal record - Where are the records?

As noted in the previous article, because someone has a criminal record, it doesn’t mean they won’t be a fit for your company.

Most employers will answer that all records are available in a National Criminal Report.

Is there such a thing?

Let us first understand what the word national means. The Oxford dictionary defines national as: ‘relating to a nation, common to or characteristic of a whole nation.’

Using this definition, then a National Criminal Report will be your best defense, right?!

Well, not everything is as it seems to be.

The term national, when used with criminal reports, is misleading, and should give you pause when you see it. There is not a database that is 100% complete, private or public, for all criminal records in the US. A better way to view these criminal reports is as Multi-State or Multi-Jurisdictional coverage.

What’s the difference?

It’s the same report, but the difference in names is more informative. A National Criminal report provides false hope that this is the best method of finding potential criminal records. A Multi-State, or variation thereof, makes you take a step back to learn more about the information you are receiving.

Nonetheless, this report searches many state criminal records and sex offender registries. Ask your provider to provide you with coverage information for a complete list. It is not the quick fix panacea you may be looking for, especially when hiring, this report still has its value as a base report.

How should you use it?

When used as a base report, it is an economical way to uncover more areas to search that you would have otherwise skipped. For instance, you have a candidate named Michael. He applies and is currently living in Chicago, but vacationed in Dallas where there is a conviction. If you were only looking for records in Michael’s current residence, Chicago, you would have missed the records in Dallas.

If the Multi-State criminal record search can inform you of charges in another state, then that’s pretty good, right?!

That’s a good start. There are other factors we need to combat.

  • Limited information can be available

Some states and counties restrict the availability of information. Coverage in these areas is scarce, sometimes rendering this search useless.

  • ‘Freshness’ of the data provided

The FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) requires Employers to use the most up-to-date and correct information. These reports may not contain the most up-to-date information. Only rely on information that is confirmed at the source.

Are you missing recent cases? If there is a lag time in adding records to databases, how will you find recent cases?

What could you do?

Relying only on a Multi-State Criminal search might be more economical, you are opening the potential liability for your company. Think about running a County Criminal report to complement your Multi-State search. When selecting reports for use in your screening process, please make sure you have a full understanding of the various reports available and the shortcomings they may have.

HR Preferred is determined to help Build HR Confidence in their screening process. And as a company standard, we do not provide a Multi-State Criminal record search by itself.

Gain HR confidence in background checks by having a conversation with your screening provider. Share pertinent information with them so they can help you out. Which states do you work in? What positions do you hire? What does your recruiting process look like? This information helps a screening provider deliver a preferred application and background check method.

 

This information is provided as a courtesy, may change, and is not intended as legal guidance.

Background Checks: What’s in a name change?

Background Checks: What’s in a name?

Name change is more common than we realize. Marriage. Divorce. Don’t like the name your parents gave you.

How does this affect a background check?

When it comes to background checks, a lot. Most background checks are name-based searches.

Now, what?

An Address History Search, or Social Security Number Trace, is a report you can use to discover more names that your candidate may have used.

This search is the key to a successful criminal background check. It provides you with a road map of where your candidate lives, has lived, and may have used an alternative or alias name.

How can you use this?

Apply what we discussed in the previous article on criminal reports.

Here’s a brief overview of the typical products provided in a base package:

Address History Search, SSN Search or Social Security Number Trace
• You can find more areas you might want to search for.
• You can find other names that you might want to search for.
• This search does not verify your candidate’s Social Security Number with the Social Security Administration.

Multi-State Criminal Record Search, National Criminal Report or Multi-Jurisdictional Criminal Search
• Pointer data only, not to be used as a final report (need to verify at the source). Most are limited to only the name given in the search.
• Add an Alias search to run more developed names through the database at the same time.

County Criminal Records Search
• Are you only searching for your candidate’s current place of residence? What if they went to school, worked, or lived elsewhere?
• Which candidate names are you searching for? Only the given name? What about the developed names (names found on other reports)?

As name changes are more common than we would have thought, make sure you are using all available names and locations.

What should you do?

As with anything else, you need to understand your and your company’s risk appetite when it comes to issues like the name change. Every company will be comfortable with a different risk level. It is essential to understand what information you are receiving and how that factors into your risk appetite. You may be leaving your risk-reward calculations out of whack if you make decisions based on misinformation or misunderstanding.

Once you are comfortable with the types of reports, work with your screening provider to create a custom screening solution. There will be variations on what you find acceptable in a screening package based on industry, position, and geography. Differences are fine, as long as you are making an informed decision.

Gain HR confidence in background checks by having a conversation with your screening provider. Share pertinent information with them so they can help you out. Which states do you work in? What positions do you hire? What does your recruiting process look like? This information helps a screening provider deliver a preferred application and background check method.

This information is provided as a courtesy, may change, and is not intended as legal guidance. 

Notes:

1 – Other factors are used to determine potential matches; this does not fall under the purview of this article.