Hiring a new person is a big decision for any company. Whether or not the candidate will perform and fit into the role is secondary, but a lot goes on in the background before the person is brought on board.
It all starts when the requirement is created within the organization, job role is defined, job description is written, and then the description is circulated across different hiring platforms to find that perfect candidate who fulfils all the requirements mentioned in the description.
The hiring manager goes through loops and bounds to filter, shortlist, and then interview tens and hundreds of prospective candidates to find the one who is well suited to the job. Now imagine after putting in all these efforts, the candidate turns out to be a bad hire. Bad is subjective, but for the sake of the article let’s assume that she is unable to fulfil the duties assigned to her, and misrepresented herself in the resume. This can turn out to be problematic, and we are looking at hours of wasted time behind one person.
You can offset this problem, and get only qualified people on board by doing a thorough background check.
A background check is nothing but a verification of the history of the candidate across different areas like work history, education, and the identity. Some companies even go in more detail to verify records of criminal investigation, and credit history but that’s usually not necessary if you aren’t hiring for a highly delicate role.
What constitutes background verification?
As mentioned above, background checks span across multiple areas like proper identification, work experience, and education history. Let’s look into these in more detail:
1. Identity verification:
This is the first and foremost thing that companies verify to check if the candidate they are interviewing is actually the candidate who they say they are. In case of any mismatch, additional documents are sought to verify the identity. Here companies verify basic details like name, age, sex, location, citizenship and country of residence.
- Education:
There are times when candidates claim to have attended a certain university or claim have an advanced degree in a subject which they know nothing about. Or they simply lie about their past education in order to get the job. Although some companies place a lot of emphasis on college pedigree, this Education check is just a basic one to verify the correct qualification of the candidate.
- Work experience:
There are times when candidates misrepresent themselves just to get the job, or try to pass on someone else’s experience as their own. Although it is easy to spot that during the interviews, there are times when they are able to seep in even after all the checks are put in place. So companies rely on verifying the details directly with the last company.
Why is background verification important?
You will find hundreds of reasons listed on different blog posts that talk about the importance of background checks, but we wanted to highlight four main reasons that we think are integral to any company, since background checks sit at the core of what we do at Starkflow.
- Doing a rigorous background verification helps to build the belief that the candidate you’re recruiting is well-qualified and has the required experience needed for the role. This is important because you do not want to delay your project or have deliverables pending because of lack of skill.
- We firmly believe that past relationships are a predictor of future relationships. If a candidate had a great relationship with her previous employer and left on good terms then chances are that she will maintain the future relationships with equal respect.
- Background verification before onboarding gives mental peace and avoids liability in terms of candidate’s qualification and if their certificates are correct or not.
- A successful background verification is an indication of the candidate’s honesty and integrity which is one of the single most important qualities that adds value to the company in the long term.
How to conduct background checks?
There are many companies who specialize in doing just that. The standard procedure that’s followed is that the HR of the company receives an email with a set of questionnaires regarding the candidate and they have to confirm whether the information given by the candidate is true or not. We at Starkflow take it a bit further and conduct additional checks before bringing a candidate onboard.
Ultimately, you don’t want to waste your time after a bad hire and compromise the quality of the work that is expected.