When you’re an active employer, it’s vital that you know everything you can about your employees. Of course, there’s a lot of opportunities to get accustomed to and familiar with your staff overtime. What can you do when you establish your team and need to bring in someone new? Hiring a new person, you could put the balance of your team in jeopardy. Of course, the law restricts what questions you can ask regarding their past employment history and about references.
What you can do is to bring in a Greenville private investigator for a pre-employment background check or screening. While everyone sounds great on their resume, you can determine if this person is genuinely someone ideal for your company or not.
What You Might Find Out About Potential Employees
Is it surprising to know that about 78% of applicants lie during the hiring process? Many employers find out later that people didn’t actually attend the universities they claimed, don’t hold credentials or certifications that they listed on their application, and more. People lie on their applications, LinkedIn profiles and in hiring interviews. It’s likely that you might learn that this person doesn’t actually have the skills or experience they claimed they had during the hiring process.
So how can you get ahead of these lies? You can hire a professional and private investigator to conduct a more thorough background check. Don’t just check for past felonies and bad credit. Instead, work with professionals to learn about possible fraud allegations, lies about work history, and educational experience.
Verify Information on Their Resume and Application
While it’s certainly illegal for an employer to give a negative reference, it seems unfair because, certainly, some employees deserve it. Often, it comes down to the question, “Is this person employable within your company again?” The trouble is that this question doesn’t offer enough insight into the type of person the applicant is or if they’re not a good employer.
So what is an employer to do? Often they’ll go outside the realm of talking directly to references themselves, and instead, they’ll investigate the matter. The common lies found during the private pre-employment background checks often include inaccurate reference accounts or similar. People list their friends as past employers or use only friendly managers to better control the situation.
In fact, one of the most common lies reported by Human Resources departments is that people will extend the time that they worked at a company. Why? They’ll do it to either mask an employment gap, or to cover for an employer they don’t want the potential future employer knowing about. For example, on an application, it may state that the person worked at employer A for three years. But in truth, they only worked there for two years, then had a six month stretch of unemployment and then worked with another employer briefly.
Other common lies include lying about attending a more prestigious university than what they actually attended or obtaining a degree when they did not complete any degree. People also lie about their GPA and their roles as managers and directors.
Credit Checks and Other Information
If your company works with sensitive financial information, you may have a strict guideline on employing people with outstanding bad debt. That doesn’t mean anyone with a credit card is barred from employment. It simply means that someone in a financially compromised situation may have a higher risk of theft or fraud, versus someone who wouldn’t have this financial motivator.
Often collections agencies, casinos, and even some resorts that handle guest’s personal information won’t employ people with bad credit histories. However, you running a credit check may have very different results from a private investigator’s findings.
Why Would You Use A Private Investigator for A Pre-Employment Background Check?
Using a pre-employment background check can not only help you determine if this person is right for the company but if they’ll stick around. You can determine through a pre-employment background check if there are other employers that the person didn’t report, or if there were negative experiences that they avoided discussing as part of the application process.
It’s because of the excessive lying among applicants that many employers are turning to private investigators. These investigators can explore questions that are within the extent of the law so that they’re not compromising any legal security. Finding the right investigator for your pre-employment background checks is critical. Set up a consultation with Upstate Investigators to learn what we can deliver to your company.
