There are some industries such as childcare where we are legally obliged to fully check people out before hiring them but in most industries this is not a requirement. Whilst this may not be a requirement by law however, even the Better Business Bureau states that you must make sure that you run a full background check applicants before you decide to hire them. There are so many reasons why you need to complete a full background check on someone – and not just type their name into Google. If you were in any doubt, here are some of the consequences which could happen if you don’t properly vet people.
Unqualified
It is no secret that people like to embellish their resumes with fake skills and qualifications, in the hope that nobody decides to review what they have put on there and get away with the scam. If however you are hiring for a specialist position which requires a certain set of skills or a certain degree of experience and you haven’t checked someone out, you could end up hiring someone who cannot do the job, this will waste money on recruitment, on training and then on managing someone out of the business and recruiting again. Don’t run the risk, perform a background check, validate the claims and get it right first time.
Criminal
One of the most important checks which a background check will do is to look for any experience of county, state or federal crimes. Now the choice as to whether or not you hire an ex-criminal will be made by you and the business but you should at least be aware of the facts before you decide. Somewhat ironically when you run the background check and find out that they have failed to declare something, they likely won’t get the job based on their lack of integrity rather than their criminal past. Something else that you should consider is that if you hire someone who has a criminal past and then they repeat that crime within the business, and you weren’t aware of their history, you will be sharing that responsibility.
Driving
If you are hiring someone for a driving job then you will need to make sure that they have a clean license and a driving history which gives you the confidence to give them the job. Imagine if you hire someone who has a track record of dangerous driving and you weren’t aware of it because you failed to perform a background check. If that driver was to involve themselves in an accident through reckless driving and cause a fatality, you will be charged alongside them in what is called corporate manslaughter. This is of course an extreme example but don’t ever think that it can’t happen to you because the people serving time for this crime right now thought the exact same way.
Many services offer background checks online with a refund if you are not happy which means that you really have no excuse, remove the risk and perform the check.