What Is an Employment Background Check?

When hiring for most positions, verifying your applicants’ identity and ensuring they are who they claim to be is important. You want to research potential hires to learn more about them and determine their credibility and trustworthiness. This is what an employment background check helps you do as an employer.

From education background verification to criminal record checks, there are several searches you can do to gain crucial insight about a person. Each type of background check returns specific information. As a result, you can protect your company’s reputation and mitigate risks by working with the right personnel.

Read on to learn about the different types of background checks, how to conduct them, the red flags you should watch out for, and how long they typically take to conduct.

What is a background check?

A background check allows you to verify a person’s identity using information from public or private sources. Depending on what you’re looking for, a background search can reveal a person’s past addresses, criminal record, educational background, driving record, employment history, and credit reports.

A background check also lets you verify their Social Security number (SSN) and determine if the person is who they say they are. Companies most commonly do background screenings on potential employees.

When looking for new employees, you’ll likely receive applications from people hoping to fill the available positions. A background check allows you to verify the information on these applicants’ resumes and can increase your chances of finding a suitable employee.

Background checks also protect your company’s reputation by lowering the risk of theft, abuse, violence, information leaks, and other criminal activities.

Types of background checks related to employment

You might do pre-employment screenings for a number of reasons, from past employment verification to personal and criminal background checks. We cover different types of background checks in the following sections.

Types of background checks:

• Employment background check
• Education background check
• Past employment verification
• Personal background check
• Criminal background check

Employment background check

An employment background check involves researching an existing or potential employee’s criminal history, social media activities, and credit and financial records. It may also include drug testing, identity, and education verification.

Information from an employment background check helps you determine if potential employees are trustworthy and reliable. The background check also confirms employee identity—proving they are who they say they are. Hiring employees who meet specific criteria can help your organization minimize risks and legal liabilities.

Although employment background checks are helpful, you can’t use them as a basis for discrimination. You must conduct searches in accordance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

Education background check

An education background check helps confirm an employee or candidate went to a particular school, college, or university and attained a specific GPA, earned certain degrees or diplomas, or obtained listed certifications.

About 39% of job applicants lie about their high school education, and 41% about their college degrees. Education verification acts as a source of truth, allowing you to detect dishonesty, eliminate unqualified applicants, and improve your hiring decisions.

While conducting an education background check, you might review past student records and contact the applicant’s high school, college, or university to verify their academic credentials. Some institutions have websites to check potential employees’ certifications, degrees, and diplomas.

Past employment verification

Past employment verification involves confirming potential employees’ details regarding their previous jobs. You can find out if job applicants worked for the companies they declared on their resumes during a particular time. This verification process also reveals the applicant’s previous position and assigned role and responsibilities.

You can contact an applicant’s previous workplaces and request information when conducting a past employment verification. Contacting references may also allow you to gather useful information about the applicant, including their work ethic, personality, behavior, and skills.

However, if an institution only discloses the person’s job title and dates of employment, don’t assume it’s a negative review. Many companies have policies that limit what they are allowed to discuss about past employees.

Personal background check

As you search for employees, ensuring their records are in order is important. A personal background check allows you to find and review potential employees’ publicly available information and verify its accuracy.

Knowing how they’re represented publicly can help you ensure they’ll be a fit with your company’s culture, and can improve your hiring process as well as your employee retention rates. A personal background check can also identify incorrect information, helping you focus on only qualified job applicants.

To do a personal background check, verify your candidate’s SSN. Next, check their criminal records and review their employment and education history. Some states and municipalities restrict the use of credit reports from employment decisions. But depending on your local laws and the role you are hiring for, consider running a credit history check.

Don’t forget to review candidates’ online presence, including social media posts. This can help you verify that the candidate will be a good fit for your corporate culture, that the information in their resume is accurate, and that they aren’t engaged in illegal activity.

Criminal background check

A criminal background check confirms whether a person has been convicted of any crimes or served jail time—among other activities. Individuals or organizations can do a criminal background search in federal, state, or criminal court databases. Some things that could appear in these checks include felony and misdemeanor convictions, incarceration records, court summonses, arrests, and more.

In some industries—such as education, healthcare, financial services, and even ridesharing—criminal background checks may be required. But in every case, employers are obligated to provide a safe working environment to their current employees, and this obligation extends to the people they hire.

Criminal background checks on potential employees can help ensure that companies have done their due diligence in creating a safe working environment. This can both help keep your company in compliance with the law, and also help you create a positive working environment that facilitates productivity.

When you uncover any information from a criminal background check, be careful to avoid violating anti-discrimination laws. To apply the information to a hiring decision, it needs to accurately reflect whether or not the person will be a reliable and safe employee and can’t be discriminatory.

If you’re unsure about what to do with information uncovered in a criminal background check, you may want to consult an employment lawyer.

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How a background check is done

A background check typically involves gathering information, verification, and adjudication. These steps require time and effort, which some companies may lack.

Working with background check services can help reduce pressure, allowing your organization to focus on its core duties. You can also receive a more detailed background report from specialists.

However, if you prefer a hands-on experience, here are the steps for running a background check.

Steps for conducting a background check:

1. Obtaining consent
2. Gathering information
3. Verification
4. Adjudication

1. Obtaining consent

A background check is typically conducted during the last stages of the recruitment process—when you have settled on a particular candidate.

According to the FCRA, employers must obtain consent from employees or applicants before running a background check. So, ensure you create appropriate documents disclosing the types of background checks you’ll conduct and present them to potential employees for signing.

2. Gathering information

Once you’ve obtained written consent, you can start your background check by collecting information from public records, online databases, and the candidate’s resume. Look at the sex offender registry, terrorist watchlists, and federal and state criminal records.

You can also widen your search by running international background checks to determine if the employee has committed felonies, been convicted, or served jail time in foreign nations. However, these checks may take longer and be more expensive.

Personal references included on an employee’s resume are also good sources of information. These individuals or organizations can help you more clearly understand who you’re dealing with. Often, personal references can confirm the employee has the required work experience, skills, and qualifications.

3. Verification

In the above step, you collected valuable information about a job applicant, including professional certifications, previous employment, and educational background. This phase involves verifying those records, ensuring they’re correct.

A past employment verification process allows you to confirm the potential employee’s previous workplaces, roles, and employment dates and duration. Performing employment verification ensures employees have the experience and skills outlined in their resumes.

As an employer, you can verify past employment by contacting companies directly or using a third-party background check company—saving you time and effort.

You also need to verify your employees’ academic records to ensure they really attained the qualifications they say they have. Doing so helps you hire honest and qualified employees and protects your company’s reputation.

To run an academic background check, you may need to contact high schools, colleges, and universities to determine if the provided academic records are authentic. You can request graduation lists for specific years, go through them, and confirm whether the job applicant graduated from said college or university.

Contact relevant bodies or official websites to verify your employees’ professional licenses and certifications.

4. Adjudication

The adjudication phase requires determining whether a candidate is fit to hold a particular position, can access classified or sensitive information, or can represent the company appropriately. Once you’ve collected information and performed verification, go through the results, interpret them, and make a decision.

Compare the results from different background checks with your company’s hiring policies and determine if a candidate is qualified to work with you. You may need to filter out candidates who fail certain background checks.

However, exercise caution to avoid being accused of discrimination or failure to comply with different federal and state regulations. To be safe, check local and state labor laws on how to proceed.

Always have proper adjudication policies to promote consistency, fairness, and compliance. Take time to analyze the results of the background checks and determine their impact on the job before making any decisions.

In some cases, background checks may return positive results that don’t necessarily affect the applicant’s job performance. A good example is a customer service representative whose background check reveals a traffic violation.

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What are some causes of red flags on background checks?

Below are some major red flags you may encounter while doing background checks on job applicants. Note that some factors require further investigation to get a clear picture of an individual’s character.

Poor credit scores

While looking for employees to fill financial positions, you may want to consider their credit scores. You may need to screen out applicants with a history of making financial decisions that may negatively impact your business.

Criminal convictions

If a background check process reveals previous criminal convictions, you should treat them as red flags and investigate them further. Determine how these convictions could affect workplace performance and safety. How does the applicant’s criminal history affect responsibilities and risks? While analyzing their criminal history, proceed carefully to avoid violating laws stipulated by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Failed drug tests

Treat failed drug screening tests as a red flag since the candidate might be using illegal substances that affect their ability to work or make sound decisions.

Traffic violations

Traffic violations can be a red flag depending on the job position you’re looking to fill. For example, if you’re interviewing applicants to drive trucks or heavy equipment, hiring those with regular traffic violations could be unwise.

Inconsistencies in employment history

Any inconsistencies identified in past employment verification are red flags because they may indicate the candidate is hiding something. This could mean the applicant had a poor record in a previous workplace, or that they didn’t work where they claimed.

Inconsistencies in education

Companies want to attract and hire qualified and experienced employees. This process starts by ensuring that prospective employees’ education records are authentic. Uncovering inconsistencies during education background checks may mean the candidate is unqualified or dishonest.

Bad reviews from references

As an employer, you can gather valuable information about a candidate by contacting their references. These individuals can tell you more about an applicant’s work history, skills, and performance. Watch out for job applicants who receive negative reviews from references. It could indicate the employee had strained relationships and didn’t perform well, among other things.

Background screening FAQ

Background screening involves working with different organizations and professionals to find answers. Here are some answers to questions you may have while doing background checks.

How long do background checks typically take?

Background checks can take a day, a few weeks, or months depending on the number of details screened. When doing background checks in public databases, the timeline may increase due to holidays, weekends, and website downtime.

Are background checks legal?

Yes, background checks are legal. However, companies or individuals must follow applicable laws and regulations while running background checks.

Can an employee dispute inaccurate information in a background check?

Yes. An employee can dispute results if they believe that some inaccurate information has been included in their background check.

Can a background check include social media profiles?

Yes. Some employers include social media profiles in background checks to get to know potential employees better. However, such employers must comply with applicable laws and regulations, including anti-discrimination laws while conducting these checks.