Most Employers Conduct Background Checks before Hiring

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More employers are conducting background checks before hiring during the employment process. A report of a survey of 606 individuals from United States organizations conducted in May 2010, and released by EmployeeScreenIQ, found that 70% of respondents perform background checks for more than 80% of their hires.

Fifty percent of the respondents in the “Trends in Employment Background Screening: 2010 Results” survey report said that background screening has become much more important in recent years. “Many organizations are aware that background screening reduces risk,” according to the report.

“For some organizations, regulations have driven the use of background screening; for example, most states require criminal background checks for individuals who work with children, the elderly, or the disabled … For others, their concern is protecting the company’s stakeholders (clients, other employees, and shareholders). Another theme was the disconcerting feeling that employees were more likely to falsify their resumes, perhaps due to the economy or changing social norms.”

Common Background Checking -
Here are some of the most common types of background screening services used, along with the percentage of employer-respondents who deem them as “mandatory” and therefore use them for all jobs (versus. only using them “only on some jobs” or “never” using them at all):

1) County criminal records checks 73%

2) Employment verifications 68%

3) National criminal record database 60%

4) Substance abuse screening 49%

5) Education verifications 42%

6) E-Verify (federal government) 32%.

7) More than half of the respondents had never used this resource.

Background screening is done post-hire for 23% of respondents, only on the preferred candidate before hired for 56%, on short list candidates for 8%; and on all candidates for 12%.

More employers are also requiring background checks on contract workers and temporary employees as well.

The breakdown is: 32% require that outside contractor companies/agencies screen their employees, 26% check backgrounds of contracted employees the same way that they do when hiring permanent employees, 13% apply a different level of checks for contractors, and 29% do not perform background checks on contractors nor mandate that they be performed.

Other Screening Trends:
Screening services that became popular several years ago are not being used as frequently, with only 15% of employers considering them mandatory for all jobs. Says one respondent, “The credit checking agencies are unreliable; the economy has damaged previously financially sound employees; there is no real correlation between someone’s credit and their ability to perform well on the job; there is increasing litigation regarding the disparate impact of credit checks on the poor and minorities.”

Two other trends cited in the survey report follow:

1) Background screening will continue to become more prevalent. About a third of those who don’t use background checks reported that they intend to do so in the next 6 months.

2) Only one-third of those surveyed felt that social networking sites were useful for employment screening.

The survey report concluded that the greatest challenge for organizations will be to ensure that they get high quality background checks and use them routinely in a climate where untruthful resumes seem more common and the risks of bad hiring are greater.

Listed below are a small sampling of questions, that JobSearchAssistant (JSA) routinely receives and answers, so avoid these common issues with most Job Seekers - Perform a Self-Background Check before Applying for Any Job.

* How can I search myself to find out if I have a criminal record or arrest record?

* How and where can I find my own background check information?  I need this for employment abroad?

* I recently received an excellent job offer but I did not pass their background check and the job offer was quickly withdrawn, so what happened?

"More employers are conducting background checks before hiring during the employment process, reference: hr.blr.com"

Perform a Pre-Employment Background Check on Yourself before Applying for a Job