Running an Employment Background Check for a Successful Business
Running a business? Are you making hiring decisions? If so, you might need a bit more information than your applicants provide. After all, in today’s highly complicated world where crimes and other felonies rule, some folks give false or incomplete information in employment applications. There is even a great probability that workers don’t want you to know certain facts about their past or present that might debar them from obtaining a job. In general, it is always a good policy to do a little investigation before hiring a person. It is very important that you know who you enter relationship with.
However, before you proceed to any employment background checking, it is best that you know exactly where you can find factual information about a particular person. First, be aware that public records are your primary source. These records are held by the government at all levels, and some organizations even record a variety of factual information about individuals and companies. These records are now available for public use, although some states require a nominal fee for public access.
What You Can Find About Someone Through Public Records?
Be clear in the first place that public records will not tell you everything about everybody. That’s a truth for all times.
For example, if you want to know if your subject is a drug user, information will not usually show up in the public records unless the person you are investigating has been arrested for drug possession or use. And when it comes to his or her medical records, which are not public records, you cannot gain access to it without the person’s permission. So you would in this case have to use other approaches, like a surveillance or interviews of the subject’s associates or neighbors. You can perform these either by yourself or by a private investigator.
That said. There is a wealth of information about individuals available in public records. Included in the list are the person’s age, address, phone number, marital status, occupation, current and past employment, educational level, driving record, bankruptcies, military records and financial worth, with some limitations however. Also, you can access public records to gain a somewhat sense of reputation and what people think of him.
Few Facts-of-Life about Background Checks
If you plan to do a fair amount of background checking, I guess it’s helpful if you are aware of a few facts about background checks before you begin your search. Here are the facts that you should know before you get started:
- Most of the information you will need will be accessible at a county courthouse or the county clerk’s office. Therefore, it is necessary that you know what county your subject lives in. If in case, you want to check him out over a period of years, you should know exactly what county or counties he or she has lived in during that period of time.
- Though you may find your best sources at the county level, you might also want to access public records at the state level. Note that state governments are the repositories for a number of types of basic background information. However, there are certain pros and cons to using the state public records:
Pros: Generally, state information includes all the counties in the given state. Thus, considering the state level is a more comprehensive way to search for information about somebody than by county.
Cons: Most of the time, state information is incomplete, for a number of reasons. Most have to do with human error or bureaucratic inefficiency. Chances are, you are liable to miss something if you entirely rely depend on state information.
With such pros and cons, experts often recommend that in background check, one should consider both the county and state repositories. The county to be considered must be where the subject is currently residing in.
- One particular tip: Always start your background checks by focusing your investigation. How you can do this? First, you must identify what you presently know about the person. Second, you must be clear about what you want to know about your subject and where you are likely to find and access that information.
Although you have the right to access public records, it doesn’t mean that you are free to dig into the person’s personal affairs. The truth is, you do not have an unfettered right to do it. Just like you, other people have the right to privacy. And, so your workers have a right to it in certain personal matters. Note that they can enforce this right by suing you if you pry too deeply.
How to Avoid Crossing the Line?
Knowing that people have the right to privacy and they can sue you if you dig too deeply, it is now necessary for you to know how you can avoid crossing such line. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:
Tip #1: Be Clear With Your Intention
If you decide to do a background check, make sure that your inquiries are related to the job. Just know your intention and stick to information that is relevant to the job for which you are considering the worker.
For example, if you are hiring a security guard, chances are he or she will carry a weapon and be responsible for large amounts of cash. So you might reasonably check for the person’s past criminal convictions. And, if for instance, you are hiring a seasonal farm worker, a criminal background check is probably unnecessary, however.
Tip #2: Ask for the Person’s Consent
One more important thing to remember when conducting a background check is to ask for consent. Always note that if you ask the person, perhaps in writing, to consent to your background check, it’s clear that you are on safest legal ground. So explain to him or her clearly what you plan to check and how you will gather information. This actually provides the applicants a chance to take themselves out of the running if there are things they don’t want you to know. Asking for consent also prevents applicants from later claiming that you unfairly invaded their privacy.
However, if the subject refuses to consent to a reasonable request for information, you may legally decide not to hire him or her on that basis.
Tip #3: Be Reasonable Enough
Probably you all know that the common reason that employers get in legal trouble is “overkilling”. Well, the tip here is not to engage yourself into it. You will not need to perform an extensive background check on every applicant. And, even if you decide to check, you probably won’t need to get into excessive detail for every position. If for instance you find yourself throwing questions to neighbors, performing exhaustive searches of public records, or ordering credit checks every time you hire a clerk or counterperson, you basically need to scale it back.
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