Excellent employees can help a business grow to a great extent. They are your organization’s treasure. But it’s better when you avoid hiring people who might not be a good fit for your business.
This is where background verification comes into play. A background check is a measure for screening candidates for their employment history, financial and commercial records, and other such records to get a clear view of who you are hiring.
Here are a few common background verifications that you should do for new hires to ensure that you are hiring the right candidates.
Candidate History
Running employee background checks help your organization avoid hiring someone who can be a liability to the business. A background verification typically comprises of his/her work history, driving record, educational qualifications, medical history, and criminal record. These days, you can aptly verify the candidate’s history even from social media platforms.
Criminal Records
Criminal record checking is a widely used screening tool but they are also one of the most complexes and misunderstood record checking.
When screening for criminal records, you must keep in mind that there are two types of crimes: serious and minor. So, as an employer, it’s your duty to define the value of your organization and draw the line when hiring candidates.
Criminal records of an individual can affect a company’s safety and job performance. So, as mentioned, you have to decide whether you want to hire a candidate with a minor criminal history.
The situation is different when, say, hiring a stock manager who will handle the inventory and funds. You have to be careful and check if the person you are planning to hire has been ever charged with fraud or theft. If it is yes, then it would be better if you look for some other candidate.
Prior Employment Verification
This is one of the most important backgrounds checks a company can perform. An employment verification allows employers to take a look at the candidate’s past work history. This can provide insights into the candidate’s job stability, integrity, and loyalty. This can also raise questions about any gap in the candidate’s work history and short stints in different companies.
Academic Verification
This is another major verification that companies need to perform on candidates to check their educational history. This is primarily done to check the employee’s educational qualifications. You can easily find out if a candidate is graduated or not through this check.
Drug Screening
Screening for drugs and alcohol is needed in certain industries such as driving or aviation. This test is done and repeated periodically to check whether or not alcohol or other illicit drugs are present in the system of an individual.
Driving or aviation, being a profession where you need to be perfectly fit, these tests needs to be performed to check the health of an individual. This will ensure that the employees are in a healthy state of mind and can be trusted with the job.
Credit Background Check
This check comprises looking into the candidate’s credit history. This helps a company gauge whether or not a candidate is fiscally responsible, especially if the job role they are being hired for involves money or finances.
These are the common checks a company has to perform to ensure they are hiring the right candidates. Apart from these, you can also get a lot of information from their social media profiles such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Though information from these channels is highly questionable, still it acts as a good cross-checking method to what the candidate tells in their CV.
Thus, background verification is a powerful tool to ensure you are hiring only the right candidate. However, it might be difficult for you to carry out this process by yourself, particularly if you are a small or medium-scale business. But you don’t need to worry. There are several organizations that offer services for background checks and if you are looking for expert background verification services, you can always connect with us for the most professional services. Global PEO companies in China or Japan may help you with your HR department, including recruitment