Updated on March 10, 2015
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No matter what industry your business falls into, the fact remains that hiring the right employees is vital to your company’s overall success. Without running a background check on your job applicants, however, you could be putting your company and even your other employees at risk. Read on to explore 10 benefits of conducting background checks on all job applicants.
1. Insight Into Personality
For starters, running a background check can give you a much better idea as to what type of person your job applicant is. For instance, if he or she has a criminal record that’s loaded with domestic violence charges, then you can gather that he or she may not do very well when it comes to associating with others or resolving conflict. Of course, you shouldn’t make too many character assumptions based on the results of a background screening alone, but this can at least give you an idea.
2. Overall Safer Work Environment
By running a background check on prospective employees before officially hiring them, you can also cut back on the chances of workplace violence. After all, an applicant who has a documented history of violence is somebody you likely don’t want being a part of your company. By making sure a person has a clean record before hiring him or her, you can protect your hard-working employees and reduce the chances of conflict in the process.
3. Ability to Obtain Security Clearance
In some cases (depending on your industry), it may be necessary to obtain security clearance for some or all of your employees. For instance, if you run an accounting firm and a government agency is looking to hire one of your employees to conduct audits for them, there’s a good chance that employee will need security clearance.
The only way to do this is through a thorough background check, so by conducting one before you even hire your employees, you can save yourself the money and hassle down the road. After all, it’s typically necessary to have a clean record in order to obtain many forms of security clearance.
4. Avoidance of Lawsuits
Hiring the wrong employee can result in many problems for your company, including potentially expensive lawsuits that could put your company in financial ruins or even cause you to go out of business.
For example, if you unknowingly hire somebody who has a history of sexual harassment in the workplace, you could end up with a sexual harassment or assault lawsuit on your hands down the road. Why take the risk? Run a background screening to decrease your chances of running into expensive legal trouble down the road. You’ll enjoy having the additional peace of mind.
5. Verification of Resume Claims
Another benefit of running background screenings on your prospective employees is being able to verify that the claims an applicant has made on a resume or job application are actually true. For example, if you’re looking to hire somebody with at least a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering for your company, a background check can help to weed out applicants who don’t have the educational experience that they claim. After all, did you know that about 40% of people have some form of a lie on their resumes?
Give yourself the peace of mind in knowing that an applicant’s credentials are legitimate and weed out dishonest applicants in the process by conducting a thorough background screening.
6. Insight Into Financial Responsibility
Depending on the specific type of background screening that you choose to conduct, you could also gain some valuable insight into a job applicant’s financial responsibility. That’s because many background reports these days will include some information about a person’s finances, such as whether or not he or she has ever filed for bankruptcy or has any bank liens.
Why is this important? Well, for companies who are looking to hire employees responsible for handling money or any aspect of the company’s finances, knowing that the job applicant has made sound financial decisions in his or her personal life in the past can make all the difference.
7. Avoidance of Negative Publicity
If something were to happen at your place of business as a result of an employee’s actions (such as a sexual harassment lawsuit, as mentioned in one of the examples above), not only could your company suffer financially, but your reputation could be tarnished as well.
These days, news spreads more quickly than ever, thanks to 24/7 news websites and social media. As such, it wouldn’t take long for word to get out about the happenings at your business. The end result could be a hurt reputation and lost business on your end–all because you didn’t run a background check on that new hire.
8. Reduced Turnover, Increased Savings
When you fail to run background screenings on your potential new hires, you have a higher chance of hiring the wrong person for the job. As such, you may either end up needing to let the person go or they may choose to quit, resulting in increased employee turnover within your business.
With higher rates of turnover, your company loses money because you need to more frequently spend money on recruiting new workers, training them, and the like. By running background checks and hiring the right employees the first time around, you can avoid these problems.
9. Compliance With Regulations
These days, there are many laws and regulations in place by both Federal and state agencies that employers need to follow when onboarding new hires. This is especially true when it comes to anti-discrimination laws, which can be tricky for any Human Resources department to follow objectively without running the same background checks on every new applicant.
Conducting regular screenings on job applicants can help to ensure that your business stays in compliance with these regulations and out of legal trouble as a result.
10. Verification of Applicant Identity
Finally, with more than 15 million people falling victim to identity theft each year, it’s worth it for you to run employee verification on all job applicants to ensure that they are who they claim to be. If you fail to run a background screening, you could end up hiring an identity thief or even somebody who isn’t eligible to work in the United States, which opens your company up to a whole mess of legal troubles.
There’s simply no denying the importance of running background checks on all new hires these days–no matter what type of business you’re in. By doing so, you can protect your business and enjoy greater peace of mind with each new hire. And if you’re looking for reliable employee screening services for your business, be sure to keep VerifyProtect.com in mind. Contact us today at (888) 219-4945 or send an email to [email protected]
