Everything You Need To Know About Background Check Solutions (FAQs)
What Are Background Check Solutions?
Background Check Solutions allow employers to understand details about individuals beyond what is written on a CV. These tools can be used to corroborate and check the veracity of any qualifications on work experience, as well as investigating beyond this. Some platforms are designed to carry out criminal records, education, and social media checks. This due diligence minimises the chances of running into any difficulties down the line that could have been avoided.
These are useful tools to use as part of the hiring process. They help to ensure that candidates are as good as they say they are, and that they are not withholding any information from you. This helps you to make fully informed decision through the hiring process.
Many of these platforms will carry out ongoing checks throughout an employee’s tenure with you. This ensures you can react to any changes in criminal records, or if an employee is behaving in an unacceptable way via their social media. This is also useful for driving related records. Your vehicular insurance may require drivers to have a clean licence. Background check solutions can check if this is the case and update you if anything changes.
How do Background Check Solutions work?
We can break the Background Check process down into five steps: consent, information gathering, verification, reporting, and outcome.
Consent – When conducting background checks, it is absolutely essential (legally) that you gain consent from the individual that you are checking. This is either achieved through a signed release form, or through accepting online policies. Breaching this can be very serious as it contravenes an individual’s right to privacy. Helpfully, background check solutions are designed to accomplish this in a streamlined and straightforward way.
Information Gathering – Once an individual’s consent has been given, a background check platform will use databases and searches to find any information in relation to the criteria. The specifics of this will differ depending on what is being assessed. A criminal record check, for instance, is very different to a social media check. Some of these checks will involve searching a directory, whilst others might require the platform to contact references to verify information.
Verification – To ensure that the information is correct, it should be cross-checked. After all, the results of this check could have a direct impact on employability, so any errors could be serious. This process can either be automatic or manual, or a combination of both. A common thing checked at this stage is that the system has identified the correct person. There may be multiple people with the same name, and you need to ensure you know which one you’ve investigated.
Reporting – Once all the information has been gathered, the background check platform can generate a report to respond to the checks. This report will be different depending on who it is for, and the type of check that has been requested. It should also include any additional information and evidence that the requesting party should have access to.
Outcome – While this stage is beyond the remit of a background check solution, it is still part of the overall process. The requesting party will use the generated report to make a final decision.
How Do You Choose The Right Background Check Solution?
It is important that you find the right background check solution for your use case to ensure that you can gather the information that you need. Before you start looking at the various platforms on offer and their features, it is worth taking a moment to identify what you want to work out. To make this process easier, we have outlined some questions to ask yourself before selecting a platform.
What type of check do you wish to carry out?
- Criminal history?
- Employment history?
- Education verification?
- Reference checks?
- Professional licensing?
- Driving record?
- Credit check?
- Do you need to carry out a check in one of these areas, or across multiple?
What features should you look for in Background Check Solutions?
Once you have decided what it is that you need to find out, you can begin to search for the best solution for your use case. We’d recommend having a look at the top products listed in this article to help you make an informed decision. As you assess each platform’s suitability, it is worth considering the following key features:
- HR Platform – Rather than operating as a stand-alone product, many background check features are offered as part of a wider HR platform. These are designed to streamline the process from posting a job, through finding the right candidate, to onboarding.
- Speed and Reliability – Obviously, you want the checks to be carried out quickly and efficiently so that they do not slow the recruitment process too much. More important than speed, however, is accuracy. Your information and decision making needs to be 100% accurate to ensure the employment process is fair. There is, then, a balance between speed and reliability that must be struck.
- Broad Access – To ensure that you gather all available information, your platform should offer broad integrations and have access to a broad range of databases. The exact access required will differ depending on the type of check that you are carrying out. The bottom line, however, remains – if the information is out there, you’ll want to have access to it.
- Scale – The ability to scale may not be necessary for all organizations, but it is worth keeping in mind. If you have a very active recruitment process, you will have to run checks on many individuals. Your solution needs to have capacity for this. Equally, if you are carrying out ongoing social media checks, your platform needs to facilitate this too.
- Global – If your company operates globally, you may have to have access to a different set of databases and areas. You need to ensure that you are operating in accordance with local and international regulations to ensure your information gathering process is fair, legal, and comprehensive.