Importance of Employee Verification and Background Checks

Organisations should not think that conducting a background check on a prospective candidate is a sign of mistrust or invading the candidate’s privacy. In fact, conducting employee verification during the initial stages of interview will protect your organisation and ensure that you do not end up hiring employees that are untrustworthy or risky for your organisation and its reputation.

Reasons to Conduct Employee Background Checks

Research reveals that many job applicants tend to make up details on their resumes to look better in a highly competitive job market. They can misrepresent their experience and educational qualifications. If you end up hiring such an individual, it will be a waste of time, money, and effort, as you will not be able to hire the right professional for the job role.

By conducting employee verification at the pre-employment stage, you get all the details about an applicant’s past, including their previous jobs, experience, skills, and educational qualifications. This enables you to see whether it is worthwhile to proceed to the next stage, which is hiring the individual.

Who Conducts the Verification?

There are professional organisations that carry out discreet verifications of employees, starting from their resume. This allows you to eliminate candidates with a negative past and you need not worry about how their work ethics can negatively impact your organisation, clients, and other employees.

Professional employee verification companies conduct their investigations to verify a candidate’s employment history, dates of employment, salary, and responsibilities at previous jobs. In addition, the verification can be extended to the candidate’s education history and certifications that they may have acquired along the way.

Today, thanks to social networking sites, it is easy for many professional organisations to check a job candidate’s social networking profile to ensure that they do not have objectionable content or images posted on their profile pages that are not in line with an organisation’s values and culture.

If you haven’t thought of performing pre-employment verifications for candidates, you are missing out on the benefits of this verification. In the long run, it helps reduce the overall costs of hiring and also limits attrition by allowing you to employ just those professionals who are qualified and do not pose a risk to your brand or reputation.