Why Pre-Employment Background Checks Are So Important
By: Connie Wendt, VP Compliance & Relations at ClearPath Workforce Management
Imagine opening the front door to your house and inviting strangers in to stay for a while. Unless you had good reason to do so, you would probably find this act risky and dangerous. These individuals could rob your home or hurt your loved ones. Inviting people to work for you without a background check can expose you to similar dangers.
Matching Facts
During the interview process, you have likely asked candidates several pertinent questions about themselves and their job history. A pre-employment background check allows you to corroborate at least some of the information. When you see that candidates provided you with false information during their interviews, you have a sure sign that turning these individuals into employees is a bad idea. Sandra James, background screening subject matter expert and CEO of Private Eyes, says, “Trust but verify; it makes a safe workplace possible. It’s so important to know who you are hiring today. Conducting background checks provides tremendous benefits to your organizations and simultaneously reduces the risk of bad hires.”
Criminal Checks
Whether or not you want to hire individuals who committed and were sentenced for certain crimes is up to you. However, you likely at least want to know the nature of those situations. Running a background check on potential employees can reveal that information. Still, though, you must keep in mind that background checks do not necessarily cover the candidates’ entire lives; you need to see how far back the reports go, and that holds true no matter what information you’re researching.
Narrowing the Pool
Learning information about your employees is important because you want to make sure you know whom you are bringing into your company. An employment background check is one of the ways to gain at least some of the facts you need. You should let people know that you will be administering a pre-employment background check early on. Including this information in the job posting is wise. That way, individuals who know they have something to hide will likely not apply for the position at all. Therefore, you can begin to narrow down candidates before you even begin to look at resumes.
ClearPath knows that background screening companies are not all alike, and that’s why we have chosen to partner with Private Eyes. Private Eyes combines easy-to-use technology, a team of passionate experts who communicate, and a CEO with a Private Investigators license, to surpass client expectations globally. Work with a leader in the industry for outsourced Human Resources functions associated with contingent workers. Get the benefits of using ClearPath as your Employer of Record (EOR). Let ClearPath be the path to your peace of mind.