If you’re planning a new hire, it makes sense to learn everything you can about your potential employee before you make a firm decision. You need to know that you’re hiring the best person for the job—and the professional background screeners at CNet Technologies are here to help.
We often get asked, “How does a background check work? What information is included—and where does it come from?” The answer is partly up to you: as an employer, you get to decide what you want to know about your new hire. However, we’re happy to share a behind the scenes glimpse at what information our screeners can obtain, and where it comes from.
How Background Checks Work
The background screening process has many pieces. It’s not like on TV, where a computer-savvy researcher types a person’s name into a database and finds their entire life history. We employ a team of experienced background screeners who know where and how to get all the information you need—but it’s a process. There’s a lot more to it than a few clicks of a mouse.
There are a few different types of background checks, but if you’re looking into the history of a potential hire, then what you’re probably considering is what’s known as a Pre-Employment Screening. Here’s what our team will do:
Verify Employment History
Although reports vary, data suggests that around 53% of job candidates misrepresent themselves in some way on their job application. These range from minor—even accidental—misrepresentations to outright lies and falsehoods. As an employer, you need to verify that what your potential employee tells you about their work and professional history is accurate.
- Our background screeners have a variety of means that we use to verify this information.
- These include an employment search, which we use to verify an applicant’s listed employment history, and an employment check to confirm positions and titles held, performance history, dates of employment, reasons for leaving, and eligibility for rehire.
- Our team can also directly contact previous employers and confirm professional references by phone and email.
Check Education and Credentials
It’s possible for some candidates to fabricate all or part of their education history, often with the mentality the no one’s really going to check. Education is actually the most-often falsified part of applications and resumes. Rest assured, our team is experienced at confirming all details of a candidate’s education and credentials.
In many cases, we may have a separate team working on verifying education history, while others work on employment history. This includes not just checking on where your potential candidate went to school, but also their dates of attendance, degree received, and even their GPA when possible.
Identify Criminal History
We use a variety of resources to check for the presence of a criminal history your prospect may have had. In many cases, there’s nothing to worry about; but it never hurts to be extra careful.
This includes an alias search (because contrary to popular belief, criminal records are sorted not by social security number, but by name and date of birth) as well as a consent-based social security number verification service. Other tools we use include:
- County criminal record check
- State criminal record check
- Federal criminal record check
- National crimes record database
- National sex offender registry
- Terrorism watch check
- Civil records
- Motor vehicle records.
In addition to performing a thorough background check to determine a candidate’s criminal history, we believe it’s also important to have an experienced team of background screeners to help interpret that data.
This is crucial not only to avoid hiring someone you shouldn’t but also to avoid unfairly penalizing a candidate due to misunderstanding or misinterpreting their background check results. These potential mistakes with a criminal record check are why we don’t recommend doing your own background check using online databases.
Additional Background Screening
- In addition to the steps mentioned above, our team is able to access a wide range of databases that we can use to screen your potential hire.
- These include DOT and professional license verification, as well as an I-9 check, which uses DHS and SSA databases to verify an applicant’s legal right to work in the United States.
- We will also use all the government data repositories at our disposal, including the US Bureau of Industry and Security, the FBI’s Most Wanted List, the Office of the Inspector General, and the General Service Administration.
Learn More About Pre-Employment Screening!
Background checks are an essential way to make sure you’re making the right hire for your business. From standard background checks to in-depth analyses, the team of professional Texas background screeners at CNet Technologies uses the latest web-based tools for background screening, along with good old-fashioned dedication and research. Plus, we provide access to it all in our easy-to-use CTrack platform!
Contact us today to learn more about how you can secure only the best talent through pre-employment screening with the services offered by CNet Technologies.
