Pre Employment Background Screening Blog

How to Interpret Background Checks
By John Rossheim
Veritude

If only the backgrounds of job applicants could be painted in stark contrasts: Candidate A’s criminal record check reveals she just got out of prison for assaulting her last supervisor. Candidate B’s pre-employment screening shows not the faintest mark against her: She has the degree from the college cited on her resume, her credit cards are always paid off on time and in full, and she’s never even been written up by a meter maid. Welcome aboard, Candidate B.

If only it were that simple!

But alas, when a human resources manager or hiring supervisor sits down to review pre-employment checks on half a dozen finalists – with each dossier running several pages – shades of gray are inevitable: A CPA with a sterling record at the Big Four has maxed out three personal credit cards – although he’s always made the minimum payments. A janitor who receives admiring references from three employers has exchanged legal blows with landlords over unrefunded security deposits. To hire or not to hire?

The hard part for those companies that conduct background checks – is to resolve the knotty issue of what to do with the results: How should employers understand, interpret and act upon the findings of background investigations – while keeping the hiring process ethical, legal, and, lest we forget, focused on identifying and closing a deal with the best candidate?

The Proper Scope of Checks Is Debatable
To set the stage for the effective interpretation of background checks, employers must decide whether to gather as much information as possible on the finalists, or tailor the screening to the position at hand. The choice isn’t simple.
“It’s better to get only what’s truly relevant to the job,” says Louis Maltby, a lawyer and president of the Fair Credit Reporting Act as amended by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act.

Once you start looking at information that is irrelevant to the position at hand, you risk encountering problems with the EEOC.

Employers Must Get Creative, Make Tough Choices
What can an HR executive do to avoid rejecting a candidate with a largely irrelevant negative finding and the best overall set of qualifications? Get creative. “Suppose you have a candidate with multiple traffic violations who will be a consultant at an accounting firm,” says Mohr. “You can require the person to take a traffic safety course before renting a car on company business.” But the manager and legal counsel are still left with a tough call: Will taking a course actually change the candidate’s behavior and inoculate the employer against negligent hiring claims?
Employers often must make a hard choice when one candidate stands head-and-shoulders above the rest – except when his integrity is taken into account. “I’ve seen situations where a candidate has falsified the education record and the employer decided to go ahead and hire,” says Schmidt. It’s difficult for employers to face the music and reject such candidates, given that 10% or more of resumes contain lies about educational achievement, according to a number of studies.

Finally, HR executives must also balance the need to deepen the investigation in particular cases against the imperative to snag the best candidate while he’s still on the market. “You do have a chance of losing your No. 1 or No. 2 candidate if you extend the process too long,” says Mohr.

What if a top candidate has one serious strike against him, but it was an honest mistake? “If an employer restricts itself to hiring people who never made a significant mistake, they often won’t hire the strongest candidate,” says Maltby.

Time since the "mistake" occured, seriousness of the "mistake", and relevancy of the "mistake" to the job position should all be taken into account

Inquest Employee Screeening is a full service pre employment screening firm that offers employee background checks and other screening services