Job seekers often shy away whenever the term ‘background check’ is mentioned, considering it as an invasion of privacy, but that's not an excuse to avoid conducting background checks for your company.
Employee background checks ensure authentic hires in your company. If not, a bad hire can diminish the company’s goodwill, incurring costs and harming employees' morale.
But what is the buzz around this word and what does it even mean?
The term “background check” is often associated with criminal history inquiries. However, it is not only limited to that. This umbrella term — background check — denotes various screenings including an address check, education check, drug test, identity check, resume check, credit check, and much more.
As the saying goes,
The integrity of a person's history is the cornerstone of their reputation.
The purpose of doing a pre-employment background check is to evaluate the competency and suitability of a candidate for a certain position. In order to perform these background checks, it is mandatory to adhere to protocols that ensure a fair and smooth process for you and the candidates.
Let us dive deep into the world of candidate background checks - types, how to do background checks, and their importance.
JobTatkal is an ‘active-in-time’ AI-powered match-making job site for job seekers and recruiters.
People go to IMDb or Zomato before going to a movie or ordering from a restaurant. Similarly, the company must examine the candidates' employment history, educational qualification, and criminal and financial history.
A background check analyzes the candidate's history before hiring them, giving you a clear idea about the candidate's character, nature, and financial background.
It also gives a vote of confidence about the candidate's truthfulness and credibility, proving that they are who they claim to be.
In addition to offering assurance of credibility and truthfulness, the check also helps you to set the right kind of work environment by hiring the right kind of people.
Below are the various types of background checks you can leverage to find the right candidate for your company:
The CV verification process involves evaluating the facts and information on the CV.
Address check involves verifying the claim that the candidate actually lives at the current/permanent address provided.
This background check verifies the educational claims made by the candidate. It includes verification of the school or universities attended, the period of the academics as mentioned by the applicant, and degrees.
Criminal record checks include reviewing court records from civil and criminal records to determine whether the candidate has encountered legal troubles.
The employment check is responsible for validating the candidate's work background or employment history by connecting with either the previous organization's HR department or reporting manager to confirm their job duration, responsibilities, and job title.
The reference check involves connecting with the references provided by the candidate, ranging from previous supervisors, colleagues, and so on to verify important sensitive information to understand the character and behavioral patterns.
Credit check helps you check the information about the potential candidate in terms of finance by assessing their credit history, payment, default information, and details of any late payments.
A pre-employment medical check ensures that the employee is active, healthy, and not addicted to any illegal substances. The medical check includes laboratory tests, vital sign measurements, physical examinations, and professional vision/hearing tests.
Identity check helps you check a candidate’s identity by verifying their government-recognized documents to check authenticity and help you to verify the proclaimed identity.
Now that we know the types of background checks let us look at their importance.
As per the report shared by Make it in 2020: ‘‘78% of job seekers lie during the hiring process’’
Furthermore, Cognizant had to sack around 6% of its workforce due to failed background checks and increased moonlighting cases.
Below are some of the many reasons why background checks have become a necessity before hiring employees:
The fundamental idea of conducting a background check is to ensure the accuracy and truthfulness of the candidate. It includes evaluating their address, educational qualifications, references, and so on.
You need to confirm this sensitive information from potential candidates to ensure that candidates are being hired with the right skills and experience.
In order to ensure accuracy and truthful information for recruiters, JobTatkal, India’s No.1 AI-powered job site has enabled OTP authentication for both candidates and recruiters while creating candidate profiles so all the information entered such as mobile number and email ID is accurate and credible.
Background checks are essential in identifying instances that can harm workplace safety or damage the workplace environment.
Ensure a safe and harmonious work environment by thoroughly scrutinizing potential candidates and their criminal records, instances of substance abuse, or violent tendencies.
The presence of such behavior patterns can be a silent threat in making a workplace threat or harm the well-being of employees.
A solid and strong company reputation is a primary need for any organization. Background checks are crucial in protecting a company's reputation by ensuring that new recruits align with the organization's core values and ethical standards.
Scrutinizing candidates' backgrounds, attributes, and social media profiles empowers you to steer clear of individuals who may potentially engage in fraudulent activities, unethical conduct, or actions harmful to your company's standing.
Background checks prevent your company from legal threats and potential liability associated with negligent hiring.
Such exceptional negligent hiring situations result in a slip-up in the hiring process, resulting in damages caused by the employee in your company.
Comprehensive background checks help you to exercise necessary caution and showcase that you took care and validated all the details and minimized potential risks.
Some industries and job roles are subject to legal requirements and adherence to regulations. You must comply with the requirements, and non-compliance with these laws can result in legal disputes, penalties, and damage to your company's image if you fail to perform background checks.
As per the Tech Jury report in 2023: More than 2 of 3 insider threat incidents are caused by negligence.
JobTatkal, India’s #1 ‘active-in-time’ AI-powered job site is committed to ensuring credibility and offering details of candidates to you with the help of OTP authentication. We offer complete details of candidates to you such as mobile number, email ID, and so on.
The benefits of using OTP by JobTatkal are as follows:
In the near future, we plan to add built-in features for user security and rapid verification of job seeker details making it convenient for you.
Maintaining a compliant background screening policy for your company will allow you to evaluate and hire fairly and consistently.
In order to hire and retain a trustworthy workforce, running a background check has become the norm. As security laws are becoming more stringent than ever, it is becoming tedious for recruiters to get access to authentic candidate information.
Here is where JobTatkal comes into the picture! This AI-powered Platform works as a bridge between recruiters and job seekers. Recruiters can easily access the candidate's preliminary information with only a few clicks!
Hire the right fit for your job role with the help of JobTatkal today! Sign up as a recruiter with JobTatkal now and see the power of effortless hiring.
Recruiters should always ask for written consent from the candidate before performing a background check. The form should explicitly explain the background check's scope, purpose, and nature.
Transparency and smooth communication is the key to building a lasting relationship with candidates, adhering to compliance, and keeping in mind candidate’s privacy concerns.
Utilize the power of background checks and improve the effectiveness of your hiring process. Competent employees can help make a reliable workforce, and these employees are less likely to leave because of malpractices or coerce other employees to leave the company.
If a candidate fails a background check, it results in the termination of his selection as a candidate, but it also depends on the employer if they are ready to sort it with the help of additional documents.
On an average, a background check can take upto 5-12 business days depending upon the type of checks that the company requires. A fixed timeline for the check is difficult to determine as recruiters demand custom checks for every potential candidate profile.
You can conduct a background check in two ways:
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Social media check
Social media check is used to check the activity and profiles of a potential employee on platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and elsewhere to ensure the candidate is not involved in any fraudulent activities on social media.
As per the report shared by CSO in 2022, One in 10 employees leaks sensitive company data every 6 months
Incidents like this make it compulsory to check social media for a healthy company environment.