A background check is a crucial pre-employment screening step before hiring an applicant. Many business owners or managers often assume that the applicants are telling the truth on their resumes. While most of the time, applicants are honest, according to Job Hunt, 10% of the surveyed workforce have lied or embellished the truth on their resume, cover letter, or LinkedIn profile.
What is a background check?
A background check is a comprehensive review of a person’s commercial, financial, and criminal records. It includes education history, employment history, credit history, identity and address verification, and driver’s license record.
Does your company need background check services?
According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 80 million people in the U.S. have a criminal record. Knowing the facts about your applicants’ backgrounds may impact your hiring decisions, the safety of your work environment, and your productivity and effectiveness as a company.
A background check will help you:
- Understand the applicant’s criminal history, if one exists. Once you know an applicant’s criminal history, you have information with which to decide if the candidate is a good fit for your organization. Sometimes, an applicant has minor charges, or very old ones.
- Ensure workplace safety. Chances are, you’ll conduct interviews with dangerous applicants like sex offenders or violent criminals. You cannot take the risk of hiring them.
- Assess job competence. It’s absolutely essential that you verify the claims job applicants make about their experiencefrom educational qualifications to job history. The employer must know the potential employee is telling the truth beyond the shadow of a doubt.
The bottom line:
A comprehensive background check is a STRONG insurance policy for future liability issues from other employees and customers with whom your company has contact.
~ Tim Dimoff, President and CEO, SACS Consulting
SACS Consulting commonly engages new clients who had previously been sued because they had failed to conduct the basic background checks that would have revealed the ‘questionable’ negative history of a person they hired, who then caused problems. The background check would have prevented this experience.
Why hire a professional company to perform your background checks?
There are three key reasons using a professional company to run your background check is optimal. Companies who utilize background checks in their hiring processes do so to:
- protect themselves from future litigation charges related to negligence
- safeguard their assets
- assure that current employees feel safe and secure in the workplace.
There are numerous policies and regulations to follow when conducting background checks, and the rules are constantly changing. To get the most accurate, compliant, confidential pre-employment background checks on your applicants, it’s best to hire an outside firm like SACS Consulting, who are experts in this complex area of employment. Call us today at 330-255-1101 to discuss options for your company.