Pre-Employment Screening Guidelines and Legal Risks

From the smallest to the largest companies and employers who understand the dual benefits of hiring the best employees and providing them a safe and secure workplace both financially and of course, physically along with their shareholders, the customers and the public in which they run in are the keys to their success. The main reason is to know a lot of information as much as possible about the potential employees and to know the information before hiring them. Hiring new employees is an important task for any company.

An employer who performed a thorough pre-employment screening of their job applicants is more likely to bring into the company a highly talented employee who will be one of the company’s greatest assets. Unfortunately, if pre-employment screening is not a part of the hiring process the employer will risk exposing his or her company to someone who might become the company’s greatest liability.

Why Do Pre-Employment Screening?

There are a great number of reasons why employers should conduct pre-employment screening and there are two main compelling factors that will make companies add this tool in their hiring process.

1. Making The Best Hiring Decision

There are some job applicants that will only tell employers what they want to hear. A good storyteller or a good writer can invent the perfect resume employers dream about. There are two separate online surveys on the inaccuracy of résumés. After conducting the said surveys, there are reports that showed 61 percent of the HR Professionals said that they find the inaccuracies after the background checks were already carried out.

By thoroughly verifying the information given during the pre-employment screening process, companies can improve the chances they are hiring the right job applicant who portrayed their experience, skills, and background honestly and accurately. Using pre-employment screening to verify the histories of each job applicant helps employers to make good and safe decisions based upon facts.

Adding Integrity Testing to Pre-Employment Screening

There is an estimation that at least six thousand business establishments that use integrity tests as a part of the pre-employment screening and selection process for hiring new job applicants for employment. Analysts familiar with this issue believe the tests are only used to screen job applicants for jobs that need fewer skills like employees in a convenience store and retail clerks.

This definition does not necessarily resolve ambiguities over the universe of tests that are actually just integrity tests. There is a controversy that surrounds the real meaning of honesty and integrity in the workplace; there are arguments over integrity tests and if they differ from other staff tests in the kinds of inferences they support or in the design; and there is only a little information on how honesty and integrity tests are actually conducted in hiring decisions.

What Are Integrity Tests?

Integrity tests are using almost all paper and pencil instruments, administered to job applicants at some stage of pre-employment screening and selection process. Some of these tests are Overt Integrity Tests which are clearly designed to query job applicants about their attitudes toward certain manifestations of lies and dishonesty, especially theft and some information is about their past and their involvement in such activities. An example of the questions in the tests asks the job applicant how honest they are, how prompt and if the job applicant thinks stealing small items from work count as stealing.

Effective Pre-Employment Screening

Competitive economic environment in our times, firms can’t afford being sidetracked by problems involving employees like workplace violence, embellished résumés, theft, harassment, injury claims or embezzlement. The increasing growth of employers turning to pre-employment screening as the critical risk management tool to have chance to avoid having hiring bad employees in the first place,

But at the same time, all companies are more cost-conscious as well. With the obvious benefits of pre-employment screening, the management always expects human resources professionals and security to produce big results with fewer resources. The Human Resources professionals and security are facing big challenge and they are finding new ways to carry out pre-employment screening program that is very effective and very cost-effective.

Four Goals of Pre-Employment Screening

One: Avoiding Negligent Hiring

The pre-employment screening program must show that employers use due diligence in the hiring process which means that employers needs to take reasonable steps to find a potential employee that is fit for the available job and protect the employer from negligent hiring lawsuit claims.

Two: Accurate Information

An effective pre-employment screening program gets factual information about the potential employee, to go with the impressions obtained from the interview part of the process. It is also a valuable tool for judging the accuracy of the potential employee’s résumés.

Three: Discouraging Applicants Involved With Crimes

Pre-employment screening is a tool that scares job applicants with something to hide, applicants with very serious criminal records will less likely to apply at a company that announces they have pre-employment screening

Four: Encouraging Applicants to Tell the Truth

Pre-employment screening should encourage job applicants to tell the truth in their résumés, job applications and interviews. And since they know the companies they are applying to have pre-employment screening and background checks, they can uncover information about themselves.

The Pre-Employment Screening Process

Employers and their viability often depend on the quality and reliability of their employees. Employers often spend a significant amount of money hiring and interviewing potential employees in trying to accept job applicants who are best suited to do certain jobs.

Employers also use pre-employment screening of potential employees to limit potential legal liability. Although there are several ways in which the law can hold employers liable for their employees’ actions, the tort of negligent hiring and the doctrine of vicarious liability are the most significant.

Having pre-employment screening process that is effective for hiring new agency staff might be the most critical and important step in hiring and retaining high quality employees and minimizing potential liability exposure and workplace violations and wrongdoings like:

• Discrimination
• Negligent Hiring
• Employee Accidents and Injuries
• Vehicle Accidents
• Workplace Theft
• Workplace Violence
• General Liability Claims

By proactively implementing and adopting a pre-employment screening process, a lot of these risks need avoiding or reduced by having specific policies and ways in place which are consistently applied throughout all departments within the firm.

Investigation

Agencies need to consider all available methods of pre-employment screening and decide which are prudent and possible for the certain jobs available and being sought which includes volunteers and contract workers. Written job descriptions need to exist for paid jobs. Every job description needs to name those essential functions of the job. Essential functions are the basic duties that an employee, with or without reasonable accommodation, needs to do. Employers should carefully look at every job to decide which task or functions are important and essential to performance, which is very important before taking an action in employment like advertising, recruiting, hiring, firing and promoting.

Evolution of Pre-Employment Screening to Mitigate Risk

For employers hiring new employees is a rushed process, especially if the job available is a critical mission. But neglecting to follow through on pre-employment screening will be more disastrous to the company than having an empty employee seat for a couple of months.

A limited pre-employment screening, a lack of checking the facts or single-minded policy about the hiring process could leave a company rushing the hiring process and pick an unsuitable new employee or worse with a tsunami of new liabilities and risks.

The Pre-Employment Screening Basics

There is no bare minimum for pre-employment screening, companies can do whatever they want, but that doesn’t mean they should leave pre-employment screening out of the equation all together. Employers need to look for the right fit for the job available and pre-employment screening will help to make sure that the potential employee is the right one.

Since every description of jobs is different, each place of employment needs to conduct different types of pre-employment screening and evaluation. Employers need to have a standard benchmark pre-employment screening process fir all levels of employment, from the retail cashier job to the CEO Job. A criminal background check is a recommendation in checking for any place the potential employee lived for the last seven years, including the state, city, county and multi-jurisdictional databases and educational verification.

Misconceptions About Pre-employment Screening

Despite their importance, pre-employment screening is often subject to misconceptions and myths. Some of these misconceptions are harbored by employees and job applicants are mostly based on a basic misunderstanding about the process, laws and the very nature around pre-employment screening. To fully appreciate the importance and value of pre-employment screening, debunking the main misconceptions around them is the only way.

Criminal Records Are Signs of Unemployment

Both employers and job applicants tend to have misconception, most employers think that by virtue of having criminal records, a job applicant is not accepted. Most job applicants also think that criminal records mean they won’t get hired and they won’t have a job.

The reality is that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission places certain restrictions on employers who use criminal records as an excuse to deny them employment. One requirement of the commission is that the nature of the conviction must have an impact on the nature of the job available. Also, a lot of employers realized that pre-employment screening and background checks sometimes return false reports. Which means rushing to make hiring decisions can lead them to lawsuits.

Applicants Have No Power

A lot of job applicants believe that they don’t have any powers when it comes to pre-employment screening. Thinking employers have all the cards, which is what some employers also think.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives job applicants all the power. For instance, any pre-employment screening cannot be conducted without the written consent of the applicant.

All Pre-Employment Screening Are the Same

This is the most common misconception among employers, which is what being perpetuated by cheap pre-employment screening firms. The goal is to convince employers that their services are as good as the expensive ones.

Child-Related Background Check Services

Every day, children across countries come into contact with a lot of businesses and organizations like malls, schools, childcare centers and hospitals. The implementation and development of policies and legislation that provides for the background check services of people who will work or volunteer in child related work and organizations which is an important tactic for creating and maintaining organizations for the safety of the children.

Most stares have introduced legislation on providing for child related background check services or who are working towards such legislation. This legislation will show the broad categories of child-related employment where employers, employees, and volunteers need to fulfill background check services requirements. There are important differences all over jurisdictions about the type of background check services that are in place, what records are being checks and who needs to undergo such procedures.

Child Safety Policy Development and Professional Registration

Adding to the child-related legislation in employment, all states have legislation that needs people who want to register in certain jobs to undergo background check services for criminal records and offences. This means that even in jurisdictions when employment legislation related with children does not exist and there are still requirements for people who are working in certain jobs to undergo background check services, due to the fact that it is part of the application requirements, certain people are exempt from the requirements of those who are working with children.

Background Check Services: Saving a Company from Adverse Consequences

Background check services consist of a process of investigating the credentials of potential employees to make sure that companies are hiring the right people for the available jobs, including a range of verification for potential job employees.

Potential Risks Companies Face

Depending on the current employee’s job in the company and on the nature of the company, the company will face a range of risks that will probably be avoided by conducting background check services.

• Financial Loss
• Operational Risk
• Damage of Status

A Comprehensive Solution

Companies may differ in size and location, which may need different types of background check services. A range of solutions developed that is entirely customized to meet the companies needs form pre-employment screening, background checks to interviews. With the understanding and years of experience about what kind of factors will impose a risk for a company, targeted checks performed will not only lower the risk for companies but also for their stakeholders.

Advantages of Background Check Services

• Integrity

Background check services make the company’s ethics strong; it is part of the insider threat management to enforce the ethics and integrity policies and guidelines.

• Ethical Climate Enhancement

Background check services will help enhance a positive ethical culture within the company where their employees share the company’s values. A positive ethical climate will add to the employee’s motivation that is self-enforcing and results into a responsible culture in the company.

• Trust

Employers will prevent potential issue through background check services. This leads to increasing the trust among all the employees and from regulatory people as well as with the shareholders and stakeholders.

Benefits of Background Check Services

Employers face a lot of challenges in the human resources sector. Hiring the perfect employee for the right job uses one of the most crucial and difficult challenges which became more difficult with a very mobile workforce and a global economy. Employers won’t be able to rely on just the interviews in making the right hiring decision, which is where background check services come in. Background check services include processes like pre-employment screening that allows employers to check and verify information about an applicant like their education, their job history and their performance. Pre-employment screening also reveals the most important information about the applicant’s behavior and if they had any substance abuse, bankruptcies, criminal convictions, civil litigation, their credit history and driving records.

Better Applicants Will Lead to Better Employees

Employers who use background check services as a part of their hiring process realize a lot of important benefits; there is a general improvement in the quality of potential employees, which leads to better workers and a workplace with high productivity and low turnover. For instance, pre-employment screening discourages bad applicants from applying, however, others will be more likely to honestly represent themselves.

51 percent of all résumés have inaccuracies and discrepancies in employment, performance and educational achievements. But it is also important to take in mind that announcement will encourage applicants that are high risk with criminal backgrounds to drop themselves, which will save money and time in the hiring process. However, the announcement does not discourage applicants who are qualified and knows that pre-employment screening will not show any significant problems.

Background Checks 101

Employment background checks revolve around information of people who can result in negative reports that have unfavorable outcomes for a lot of applicants. These reasons make legislation that will protect the right of job applicants and employees and make sure that the information revolving in employment background checks are both right and recordable.

A lot of employment background checks based on people’s names that can generate results that don’t even belong to the applicant being searched. The most common names are more likely to have duplicate or unrelated retrieved. There records taken out by comparing other identifiable personal information like the birth place or date of birth. There is always a risk of misidentification when there are billions and billions of people walking around in the universe. But rules still exists to protect applicants by providing ways to current any mistakes and dispute the processes and ways.

What is Fair Credit Reporting Act?

Fair Credit Reporting Act is the main piece of legislation that controls employment background checks, but this act applies to more than just credit reports. It has any and all information being reported to employers by the ones who provides employment background checks.

Employment background checks are also known as consumer reports or investigative consumer reports which differ on the type of information being searched. The act requires employers to take a few steps that include consent and notice before conducting employment background checks; the act also set the specific process and ways followed by employers when they take adverse action against applicants like denying them employment, promotion or terminating their employment.

Guidance on Pre-Employment Screening and Selection

This will guide and help employers when they interview, choose and accept new employees or even in promoting a current employee from within the company. But before the interviews begin, employers should take steps to make sure that they reached all the thoroughfares of the pool of qualified applicants.

• Employers must take in mind that the application form is their calling card. They must know that any questions on the application form unrelated to the job will appear as somewhat discriminatory and will dissuade good and qualified employees from applying to their company.
• Newspaper and magazine advertising will attract women primarily because they are the main readers. Members of minority groups, people of different sexual orientations and people with disabilities are people of the community who communicates a clear message that qualified applicants from disadvantage groups are welcome to the employer’s company and be treated with respect.

Interviews and Notes

Interviews are always a part of pre-employment screening and conducted by employers to learn more about the suitability of their applicants who are under consideration for a specific job. But sometimes the information being searched during the interviews are not even relevant to the job now available and let discriminatory elements effect the pre-employment screening and selection process. Discriminatory questions like:

• Where the applicant was born which has nothing to do with their ability to do the job available.
• Asking their height and weight, which are not for measure of physical strength, but for screening out women or some ethnic or racial groups that is much smaller in stature.

How to Beat Computerized Pre-Employment Screening

Computerized pre-employment screening is a software that will tell the truth and may disqualify applicants, especially if applicants lie it will catch up to them in the interview process. There is a little creativity and a lot of perseverance that would get applicants past the computer and into the interview process.

When Pre-Employment Screening Software Replaces Employers

Understanding why companies use pre-employment screening software to weed out bad and unqualified applicants. There are about 13 million people in the united states that are looking for work and some of them are applying for jobs that does not meet their skill sets or experience. The HR department of every company cannot sort all the applications of every person who applied.

But pre-employment screening software does not do the job as well as a human. It can’t apply any judgment or pass along applications from applicants who meet some of the requirements stated. Or the problem is narrowing the labor pool by employers who create pre-employment screening requirements that are too high for the job they are hiring for.

Connecting Is the Solution

If you really want a job, getting screened out by pre-employment screening software should not stop you from going after the job. But lying is neither the solution, nor spending a lot of time trying to cheat the pre-employment screening software.

Transparency in Pre-Employment Screening Process

Many employees think the process of pre-employment screening is a total mystery. Misconceptions of applicants spread about what pre-employment screening consists of the range of the permanent records to the idea that pre-employment screening of any kind is illegal. But the truth is if conducted the right way, the process of pre-employment screening is a transparent exercise. Following the right rules will help lower or destroy the uncertainty and the worries that a lot of applicants, especially those who have nothing experience when they of through pre-employment screening making one of the first interactions applicants have with employers a good one.

Pre-employment screening is not a secret attempt for companies to kick out applicant they don’t want. Laws especially the Fair Credit Reporting Act is here to make sure that the process of pre-employment screening is clear and transparent.

Employers should tell the potential employee first that they will subject to pre-employment screening. As said in the act, employers need to tell the potential employee that the company will conduct a consumer report as a part of pre-employment screening in a disclosure that is crystal clear to the applicant and in the document that will only consist of the disclosure. Disclosure should have the name and the contact information for the firms who will conduct the pre-employment screening process to complete the report. The applicant needs to have an awareness of the requested report and the company completing the said report.

Requirements of the Act and the Right of Applicants

After the report is completed, the applicant will either be offered the job or denied the employment or take back the offer given. The act also requires employers to tell the applicant of the decision they made based mostly or partly on the report and they should have the contact information about the firm who conducted the pre-employment screening. Applicants will get their chance to speak for their part about the results of the report with the firm. If the applicant decided to do this, the firm will tell the employer. The pre-employment screening firm has 30 days to do an investigation again. If the employers decided to move forward with the decision, the applicant will receive notifications on the final decision of the employer.

Contract Employee Background Checks

The use of contract employees is increasing in recent years; employers in a lot of industries rely on contractors to get the job done. But in the employee background check criteria the companies who contracts for its employees if there is one. There might be an employee background check in place, but these are both frequency and quality.

Protecting the Company

Employers should protect their companies, their employees and mitigate the risks that are because of contact workers. Employers need to develop a process for employee background check that will apply to all their employees. And they have to make sure that the policies will meet the needs of their companies and all the federal, local, state and industry requirements. Providers of employee background check services are knowledgeable representatives will help employers in evaluating their current policies and develop a program that will meet their needs. Once the policies are in place, the key is consistency. Employers must make sure that these policies will apply to both employees and contract workers in their companies. Employers need to ask third-party firms to do the same employee background check services in their company. Hiring contract workers who are not properly background check will not only damage the company’s status, but will also hurt financially and will end up in lawsuits.

When Dealing With Vendors

When working with people who give contracted workers, employers have to find out how they do their employee background check services and which firms do they use and what their employee background check services cover. Preferably, employers should offer them their company’s requirements for employee background check services and ways. Be specific in all the requirements for the employee background check like criminal records searches, licenses, references and employment. List the same ways the company use to background check their employees. To make sure that employee background check services are consistent to all contracts and internal employees, employers have to make the vendors use the employee background check their company use.

Pre-Employment Screening Software

When you receive the sheer number of applicants for your job openings, do you get overwhelmed? Today, it might seem like all the good applicants are lost under the stacks of unqualified job applicants, which is where pre-employment screening software comes in. It can give you a pre-employment screening process that will let you find potential employees that are qualified for your job positions. Here are some scenarios that will light some questions so employers have an easier time in the pre-employment screening process:

Job Qualifications: Can They Read My Job Ad?

Since there are a lot of applicants and only a few jobs, there are job applicants who will go with the shotgun approach in applying for jobs. They will apply for any job they will see, even if they are over or under qualified for it. But pre-employment screening software allows you to ask applicants questions based on the job they are applying for. Pre-employment screening questions allows you to see all the answers for all the job applicants for that job in a table that sorts on your own, choosing and rank and archive some applicants until you have your own list of applicants who are all qualified for your company.

The Purpose of Pre-Employment Screening Process

Pre-employment screening is a service and a process that supports a company’s hiring and selection rules and can involve verification of an applicant’s qualifications and the history of their employment, criminal records check and reference checking, dependent on the level of the job sought.

The pre-employment screening process looks for all available information about the applicants and their past behaviors and attitudes, this will take the risk out of the hiring process by making sure that employers have the facts. Ideally, decisions in hiring are only made after careful considerations of applicants past histories, qualifications and experiences.

But in reality, it is hard for companies to carry out these pre-employment screening which results in a real risk of hiring without any enough information and possibility of altering the hiring decision because of the information they gain.

The discovery of information after the employer made a hiring decision and the applicant is not who they say they are and put their exaggerated experiences and or they behaved badly in their earlier jobs.

Pre-Employment Screening Are Applied For Whom?

A lot of companies believe that all potential employees for all types of jobs should need to have pre-employment screening as a practice which shows consistency and tangible of the programs for preventing loss and fairness.

The risks of hiring applicants who does not have any skills or experiences employers think they do are potentially significant. If that applicant has shown dishonesty is someone else’s previous workplace or has prosecuted for a crime of dishonesty, there is a high chance that they will do it again in another workplace.

Pre-employment screening of all potential applicants earlier to hiring demonstrates fairness in safeguards against discovering later what you would have preferred to know before making decisions in hiring.

Reasons to Use Accredited Background Check Companies

A lot of companies have paid millions and millions of dollars to settle lawsuits in the unprecedented rise of employment background checks and law violations in employment background checks. With a lot of legislation popping up as expected in 2016, the legal landscape set to become more complex. Like the risks of committing violations when conducting employment background checks is possibly becoming even bigger.

Should companies suspend employment background checks so they can avoid legal sanctions? No, of course not, Employment background checks are important in the hiring process and conducting them is a must.

Why Do Companies Get Lawsuits?

First, lawsuits related employment background checks are from one source which is selecting the wrong kind of companies who do employment background checks. Using the right companies who do employment background checks leads to legal problems in two ways.

Some employment background checks companies commit violations when they conduct employment background checks. In many cases, when companies who had contracted they are the ones who will face legal action. In other words, companies who do employment background checks commit violations while their clients take the fall.

Like some firms who do employment background checks do not verify their results. They don’t cross check to make sure that the result of their employment background checks is correct. Most of them return false information of their employment background checks. When companies make drastic and wrong decisions on the basis of the false information, they end up getting the lawsuits.

The second way is that some firms who do employment background checks do not tell their clients on compliance issues, the best firms who do employment background checks are usually up to the latest legal requirements for jurisdictions. They send their clients with tips they can use to make sure their compliance. Some firms even refuse to do employment background checks unless their clients are following legal stipulations. Unfortunately, not all firms do this. A lot leave their clients in legal wormholes and set them up to commit legal violations

Checking Employee Backgrounds

To re-emphasize all agencies who check employee backgrounds are all licensed and to do the checking of employee backgrounds, because of employment. If checking employee backgrounds will show actions which can potentially harm and injure people receiving the company’s services, the company is not hiring the person.

The purpose of checking employee backgrounds is to assure to the possible extent that potential employees are unlikely to harm people physically, psychologically and financially. A license may not contract or use people with criminal records which show behavior and actions that can potentially harm people, searched through either criminal records check or criminal background checks. Statutory note and regulations require two types of background checks, criminal background checks, and former employer background checks.

Following these requirements, the company or the employer should not depend on this one.  The employer should comply and be familiar with all the statutes and laws cited and other regulations that need reports of neglect and abuse incidents. A serious violation of these regulations is when a license fails to comply with a basic safety and health standard.

Checking Employee Backgrounds

The information on employee backgrounds is essential to companies that need new employees. They need the license to send a request to get references from recent employers. The least information on employee backgrounds, they can get from employers are histories of physical abuse. Good judgment is good enough, the license requires to dig deeper and check all references.  

Background Checks: Dos and Don’ts

A good pre-employment screening policy will make sure that a company will both take a rounded, correct and balanced view of an applicant’s background. There are some things that will help companies get the most from their background checks.

What to do

Verify the Identity of Applicants

Identity authentication is the key to the pre-employment screening process. Verifying is the applicant saying who they say they are should always be the first part. A lot of pre-employment screenings are ineffective if even the applicant’s basic details are not correct. Applicants may hide their criminal records or other information by changing addresses or leaving a gap. If the applicant is new to the country, their records of earlier residences in other countries thorough background checks will check it.

     Check Qualifications

Using third parties to confirm an applicant’s qualification can make sure that the legal and industry requirements met.

Employers need to thorough pre-employment screening on the applicants they are hiring and make sure that they have relevant certification before taking them on and have proof that they took the right paths years down the line.

      Add Criminal Records on Pre-Employment Screening Process

Criminal records highlight a minor offense like a penalty for speeding. Situations like this, employers can make their decision in hiring, a lot of serious convictions even if it can bring an impact on the job they applied for and bring applicants' integrity into question.

Appropriate ways should be implemented to prevent any risks that will harm other staff or the status of the company.

Employment Background Checks are the Crucial Kind of Checks

Employment background checks are one of the most important checks, employers need to easily confirm an applicant’s past work experience and it also shows applicants who falsify information which is one of the most common areas. Reports say that there was a discrepancy rate of at least 27 percent in the employment background histories based on more than 290 thousand employment verification conducted in the last months of 2014.

Conduct employment background checks and look into an applicant’s past work history that can show insight into their stability and loyalty to their job and employer. Employers compare the applicant’s claims on their applications with the real results of the employment background checks reported by the background check company hired by the employer.

Employment background checks will verify:
• The start and end of job dates
• Titles the applicant held
• The applicant’s salary
• Their job duties
• And the reason for their termination and rehire eligibility

Conducting Employment Background Checks

Employers must get the applicant’s permission before conducting employment background checks. The applicant can decline permission to contact any employers from previous employment. But applicants can still be asked for permission to offer documents to prove their employment, but same goes to previous employers who cannot be contacted especially those who are no longer in business. Employment background checks will verify previous employment based on the clients’ guidelines.

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Question Answered About Pre-Employment Screening

Heart Pounding, Brain Racing, Pre-Employment Screening.

This is not unusual for applicants when they were asked by employers that they will conduct pre-employment screening on them even though they had the interview process. Understanding the reason and the scope of pre-employment screening should put every applicant's mind to rest. These are some questions about pre-employment screening and the answers to ease the minds of the entire pool of applicants looking for jobs.

What Do Companies Look For In The Pre-Employment Screening Results?

Employers check our background to see if the applicant and their résumé don’t have any kind of red flags, which is one of the reassessment and why applicants should always be truthful and correct in their résumé.

They will also look for the criminal records of the severe problems that an applicant might have. Employers are always trying to protect their company and themselves from liars, thieves, anger problems, drugs and alcohol abusers, which are unstable in one way of the other who will repeat and bluntly bend the rules.

The pre - employment screening includes a 10-year criminal history check that shows in an applicant has ever been convicted of misdemeanor charges or any kind of felony. Driving records, Social Security and Credit history will also show up in the check. Driving records, Social Security and Credit history will also show up in the check. Employment, education and references checked by most employers during the pre-employment screening

Potential Risks for Employers and Criminal Background Checks

Today, hiring has never been more difficult. Traditional background checks such as pre-employment screening, criminal record searches have come under increasing analysis by federal and state legislators. Many states have recently created and added laws that limit the use and practice of criminal records to protect the applicants and their privacy and prevent future discrimination in the hiring process. The result will not only be a patchwork of different laws that can trap employers but also a loss of a very valuable tool that became a necessary part of the hiring process.

The Decision

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued an updated version of enforcement guidance in considering arrests and conviction criminal records in employment which is also called Title VII: The Guidance, which took effect immediately. The guidance shows the employers’ and their reliance on conviction and arrest criminal records which have a great impact on people with different national origin or race and significant changes in sectors that are important to a lot of employers. The major voters agreed on securing employer-friendly concessions.

The Concerns in Title VII

The guidance will crack down on the misuse of conviction and arrest records which is a part of EEOC’s effort and it is due to the growing impact in incarceration and arrest rates for African-American and Hispanics to whites. The guidance will note that minorities arrested at least two or three times at the rate, which is a great proportion of the general population. The EEOC is concluding the national data which supports finding criminal records exclusions have a great impact when it is on the value of national origin and race, which is why the EEOC relies on these kinds of disparities.

Ethics in Using the Internet as a Part of Pre-Employment Screening

A trend growing inside the business world and market place today, to use search engines and social media networking sites as a part of pre-employment screening program, Employers are always the ones who are responsible for the actions and incidents that their employees may make and they want to know information about them as much as possible before investing money, time and training required to merge them into their respective companies.

Nearly half of the resumes submitted to employers contain factual errors, so it is understandable why employers conduct pre-employment screening as a side of caution. And employment fraud and theft cost retail business billions of dollars every year and companies spend 2 million dollars every year from workplace violence incidents. Negligent hiring lawsuits are rising against companies and employers when their employees commit workplace violence, which increased the necessity for employers to conduct pre-employment screening on potential employees and some of the companies have gone to the conclusion to go to the internet to find all the information available of their applicants. But even if it is important for companies and employer to know the people they are about to hire, it is very unethical to depend on information just sitting on the internet as a part of pre-employment screening when deciding which applicant to hire.

Effectiveness of Pre-Employment Screening

Being side tracked by employment and employee problems like violence, theft and harassment in the workplace cannot be given solution by companies especially in today’s economic competitive environment. Pre-employment screening critically increased the employment processes of the employers as a risk-management tool to avoid having avid problems in hiring employees in the first place.

Companies are cost-conscious at the same time. Even though a lot of obvious benefits when an employer conducts a pre-employment screening for their company, expecting human resources professionals and security by their management to find and produce more results with a small resource.

Human resources and security professionals are facing a big challenge when they have to find ways to start a very effective and cost-effective pre-employment screening program. To find a way to start a cost-effective pre-employment screening program, a kind of program has four goals.

A Risk Solution: Pre-Employment Screening

This will offer information about the available options for employers looking and investigating the potential employees and their backgrounds also known as pre-employment screening and its limitation imposed by state and federal laws. A thorough and careful investigation into the background of a potential employee is essential to the well-being of the company and may limit the consequences financially to a company from negligent hiring.

Negligent Hiring
The basis for recovery against employers who use their positions for criminal and wrongful actions of employees against third parties called Negligent Hiring, whether or not those actions performed inside or outside the scope of employment. The requirements satisfy this sort, when employees being hired without any kind of pre-employment screening and these investigations would have indicated that the potential employees were at risk.
An employer’s negligence in retaining a potential employee is known dangerous in the workplace, fellow employees, customers and others which is a law that makes employers liable for the risk of safety. Pre-employment screenings is necessary for hiring the best background check company available for the success of a company, and help protect against retention lawsuits and negligent hiring. The doctrine about retention and negligent hiring are courts increasingly upholding, they are making sure that employers should make every effort and make sure that the pre-employment screening and the hiring process are properly reasoned and a useful exercise.

An Employer’s Guide to Pre-Employment Screening

Conducting pre-employment screening on applicants is a very important part on the hiring process. This guide will offer employers advice on conducting pre-employment screening in a way that will support their company’s important goals.

Careless approaches to pre-employment screening wrong applicants, with damages in terms of low morale and costs as a result and the employer and his or her reputation because of legal challenges.

There are many reasons why guidance is good for practice in conducting pre-employment screening is necessary:

• The employer adopts legal and ethical practices and gain increased public recognition needed.
• Social media as a part of the pre-employment screening during the hiring process, but it is not yet clear what the legal implications of this practice might have.
• Employers shift towards outsourcing, hiring background check companies to conduct pre-employment screening.
• And lastly, previous employers are not great references since they are reluctant to make any negative comments for legal challenge purposes.

The guide draws on topics with employers, employment lawyers and HR professionals who have extensive knowledge and experience in advising and conducting pre-employment screening.

There are core principles that need research for the employer’s aims which are a relevant guidance for all the sectors in conducting pre-employment screening:

• To protect the company, clients and customers.
• Make sure to have compliance and non-discrimination with the data protection law.
• Be fair to all applicants.
• Do not rely on opinions but facts.
• Validate every information that will be useful for hiring.
• And lastly, be open and transparent to applicants about the pre-employment screening process.

Choosing Background Check Companies

These days, when you read publications about management or human resources, it is impossible not to see articles about the “war on talent”. The management for talent has become the ideal mantra in creating competitive advantage for companies of all kinds in our economic marketplace.

The focus employers have one tablet every time they hire new applicants, especially for management, technical and high valued jobs; many important things riding on the hiring decisions of the employer. There is a lot of success for companies that hire good employees, but hiring bad employees may cost companies a lot more than status or money.

Bad Hires Cost Companies

Companies who have reports of making bad hires lost tens of thousands of dollars in their financial cost, 29 percent of German employers have reported that they lost at least 80,000 dollars due to hiring mistakes. Making bad hires can have several consequences across a company; the costs are high when you add strained clients and employee relation, missed opportunities of sales, legal issues and resources for hiring and training new applicants.

There are reports that employers have insufficient information that contributed to the employer’s bad hiring decisions and failure to check an applicant’s references which is one-third of the problem, lacking in information on applicants and their background and experiences.

Background Check Companies

Background check companies and their pre-employment screening serves as a critical role in finding information that the employers need to make a good hire. The pre-employment screening includes background checks. Background checks provide information that can help employers make the right hiring decisions, but if done poorly, it will have a negative Impact to their company.