Every company should know that the employee they are hiring is worth their salt. Every company has the right to have peace of mind knowing that they have the right professionals who are reliable, trustworthy, and can perform the tasks assigned to them in a steady and productive way. Background verification prior to hiring ensures you gain the best possible ideal of this and can accordingly decide whether you want to go ahead and make this individual an employee or not.
What does background verification cover?
An employee background check gets an idea of the criminal records of the candidate. Other than this, it also shows you their driving records and whether they are a sex offender or on a terror watch list. Usually, it encompasses a credential and credit check.
Employee screening in India also looks at the candidate’s work history, education background, degrees, academic certificates, credit scores, and legal records. The company runs a background check either before or after the hire. It works to:
- Protect the reputation of the company
- Safeguard the assets of the organization
- Minimize turnover as you hire intelligently
- Keep safety at the workplace at top priority
- Inspire confidence in shareholders as well as customers
- Steer clear from legal action
What to do before conducting background checks
Here are few steps to follow before you conduct background verification processes
Obtain the right legal advice
Background checks can bring to light very sensitive information. Sometimes, you may not be able to obtain specific information as part of the check. So, it is best to confirm with a lawyer so that you do not go through any legal issues and problems of any kind.
Keep a consistent policy in place
You can put this policy in the form of a flow chart so individuals gain an understanding of which steps to complete and at which point they need to be completed. Perform all of the processes carefully or else you may end up in legal troubles. For instance, only looking at conducting credit card checks of individuals who come from certain backgrounds.
Do not take specific parts of the background check for granted
More often than not, you are going to find vital glimpses of information in the most ordinary and routine parts of the background check. So, it is important to go in for managers who take every element of this process seriously. These professionals need to pay attention to every part of the checking procedure.
Never enquire about character information while looking at past employment facts
See that you refrain from doing this under all costs. This is because the moment you begin doing this, asking for opinions and begin questioning about attitude and character, you are inevitably performing an investigative consumer report. This means you have to give notice to the applicant, give them an option to ask for details as well as comply with their requests.
The things background verification agencies look at
There are a few vital elements background verification services look for to make certain they are going in for the right candidate. This includes discrepancies in compensation, gaps in experience, certificate courses that are said to be degrees, a mismatch in the education obtained, widely varying skill sets, working in various unrelated industries. Other than this, safeguarding the reputation of the company and enhancing the quality of hires are aspects professionals conduct background checks for. To prevent or minimize fraud, theft, and other criminal activity as well to keep an eye out for fake degrees from unrecognized universities are other reasons why background verification checks are conducted. So, there you go.
Smaller firms generally rely on the internal team of HRs for their background verification of the employees they recruit. Big private companies, on the other hand, hire third-party agencies to do this for them. HR teams who look after the background verification process possess a potent tool. They have the ability to understand in an in-depth manner about a job applicant even through their social media handles. There are no laws that state companies need to scan social media handles of candidates but you can look for homophobic slurs, racism, and inappropriate pictures which leave a bad impression about the applicant.
