In order to protect the company from various potential risks, a background check is considered an imperative pre-employment screening step before making a hiring decision. Most of the times, companies assume that the applicants are telling the truth on their resumes. Most of the times, applicants are honest but there are few areas where they can hide the truth from you. To ensure that your company is hiring the right person, a background check needs to take place.
What is a Background Check?
It is a comprehensive review of a person or any other organization’s commercial records, financial records and most important of all, criminal records. A background check can include education, employment, credit history, criminal records, license record etc.
There are various background check services providers that can get you all the information on your current or future employees.
Why Your Company Needs Background Check Services?
Here are some obvious reasons why your company needs to acquire background check services to ensure sound hiring decisions:
It Highlights Criminal History
One of the main reasons why companies decide for pre-employment background checks is to flag any previous criminal history of the applicant. Having the knowledge of applicant’s criminal history, the employer can make a final decision. Sometimes, criminal history suggests minor charges on the applicant. However, in order to ensure that whether the applicant is suitable for hiring or not, a criminal history check needs to take place.
It Avoids Liability
Let’s suppose that you hire a person for truck driver position without running any background check on him. One day, he gets into a major accident on a busy road due to driving under an influence. The police arrest the driver and it turns out that he already had three DUIs in the past. Given the fact that you didn’t run any background check, there are chances that you’ll be considered liable due to your negligence.
It Ensures Workplace Safety
There are chances that you’ll conduct interviews of applicants that are dangerous. From sex offenders to violent criminals, you just cannot take a risk of hiring them. But what if you do not run a background check and hire a violent criminal or sexual predator? It will compromise your workplace safety. Every employer knows that workplace safety is one of the top concerns and if it is compromised then there are chances that you will be held accountable for it.
Job Competence is Important
For employers, verifying the claims that are made by job applicants is important. Let it be the educational qualifications or any other job history, the employer needs a reliable way that can make the screening process a success. Without background checks, you just cannot be positive about the hiring decisions you made.
It Ensures That You Have Made a Right Decision
In the end, it all comes down to peace of mind. It is obvious that you want your company to thrive and that is why you’ll choose the best candidates. There is no denying that employment screening processes are hectic and full of stress. You go through such lengthy processes because you want the best for your company. If you want to make sure that you’ve hired the right person then running a background check is as important as anything else.
The Bottom Line
All things considered, you need to be thorough in your employment screening process and that is only possible with a comprehensive background check on each applicant. So, unless you want the workplace safety to get compromised or go through the stressful employment screening process again, it is best to run background checks to make smart decisions. Needless to say, it is the best approach for you!
