Employment screening means, essentially, checking out a job candidate's background. Is the person who he or she claims to be, with the qualifications stated in the resume or job application? Does the candidate have any criminal convictions or other disqualifying qualities or issues?
It's easy to get employment screening done nowadays - a few mouse clicks will get you an online report on just about anybody via one of the hundreds of Web-based employment screening companies out there. But, frankly, many of the screening services being offered online are cursory and, well, unreliable at best. Are you sure you're really getting a valid, reliable screening report? Will it stand up to scrutiny if a legal issue (e.g., God forbid, a lawsuit) ever happens to your company? To judge this, you need to know a little about employment-related background checking, which is what this brief article is about.
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is closely regulated by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and various state employment laws. The law does of course permit employers to conduct background checks on potential employees, but employers are required to disclose in writing to the job applicant that they intend to do so, and if an "adverse action" is taken due to information found in the background check (i.e., the person is not hired), then the employer has to inform the applicant of this and disclose the specific unfavorable information uncovered.
Oftentimes, such unfavorable information consists of a criminal records finding. A thorough pre-employment check should always include a comprehensive criminal records search. If your job candidate has been convicted of fraud or other serious crimes in the past, this is obviously relevant to your employment decision (although the law requires you to consider each case of a criminal record finding on an individual basis in terms of its seriousness and job