Whenever I try using a search engine to find background checks on someone, I am usually bombarded with online ads. These ads want to charge me money for personal information on an individual. There is usually some sort of teaser about how many results are found, and how many types of records there are – birth, divorce, arrest, death, etc.

I am always tempted to try them, that is, until logic sinks in. If there are so many search results, how will I know that what I am paying for is the right person’s pre-employment screening? What if I pay the fees for access and I can’t really find accurate or timely information on the person I am trying to research?

Going with some cheap online company, I might pay a small amount, but if it isn’t the right person, then I will be left with paying more to get the right information on the right person. It would not only be a waste of my money, but also my time.

I usually leave the website and go back to plan A – using a reputable company for my background checks. Sure they might charge more up front, but I know that they are providing solid, accurate information for my employee background checks, that I can use to make good hiring decisions.

I only want to run an employee background check one time. I don’t want to have to worry about getting the wrong information because the internet gave me the wrong person.

To purchase Pre-Employment Screening Services or for more information on background check experts, background checks, criminal background checks, employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547 

I ran into an interesting situation the other day involving employee background checks.

We had an associate found guilty of employee theft. It was a pretty open and shut case. We followed our company procedures to the letter, and the end result was that we terminated this employee. She was not prosecuted, but we did require restitution to be paid to us to make up for the losses she incurred.

We didn’t think much else about it. In an unrelated matter, or so we thought, a few months later we were in the process of promoting one of our employees to a management position. They would have keys to the building, safe codes and alarm codes.

As per our policy, we ran a background check before the promotion was to go through. One of the points on the employee background check is address verification. The employee’s current address was different than the one we had on file from his application.

While this was not unusual in and of itself, there was more that this background check revealed. On the list of known residents of that address was our previous employee that we had terminated for theft.

Had it not been for the background check, we would never had reason to question this employee or his motives.

This is just one of the reasons why running an employee background check has different advantages and looks for different criteria than a pre-employment screening might. Because his move was recent, the pre- employment screening would not have turned up the connection with this employee.

To purchase Pre-Employment Screening Services or for more information on background check experts, background checks, criminal background checks, employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547

In the early days of my working life, I knew very little about background checks. I trusted that employee background checks were cleared through some magical process in our main office. At the very least, I thought the application provided all of the critical information needed for hiring decisions.

How wrong was I?  I did not realize that verification of information on applications is one of the main services provided by a background check company.

I was fresh out of high school and working in a small restaurant with a bakery. I knew that our bakers weren’t born here in the USA, but I didn’t know they were here illegally. It wasn’t until the day they asked me to marry one of them to help keep them here in the States, that I realized they were illegal immigrants.

I turned their offer down, but I never turned them in.

It wasn’t until many years later that I realized the full extent of these actions.

They were here illegally, and had to be using someone else’s social security number to be employed. It might have been one of their friends, and the number was being shared within their own group, knowingly and willingly.

It very well could have been the number of a complete stranger who had no idea what was going on. They could potentially have credit or tax problems because of this.

It also meant that the company had not consulted with a background check expert to handle the pre-employment screening conducted by my employer through a background check company that would have potentially caught their secret through the criminal background check process. If an illegal immigrant could be hired on, whom else might I be working with? Criminals with a history of theft? Maybe even violence? The list goes on.

Background checks are there to protect employers from all of these issues.  Employers who consult with background check experts who specialize in criminal background checks and employee background checks can alleviate many of these worries.

To purchase Pre-Employment Screening Services or for more information on background check experts, background checks, criminal background checks, employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547 

There was an interesting article in our local paper last week. One of our city commissioners had been sent a 1099 form from an employer in a different state. Her first thought was that it was clearly a mistake. Shouldn’t a background check be enough to clear the matter up?

She first contacted the company who sent her the 1099. As it turned out, this “employee” had been working there for about five years before they left. Because a driver’s license is not required anymore, there was no picture identification to be able to match up, or use to dispute her claim.

She had not consulted with a background check company or any background check experts to conduct criminal background checks and employee background checks. The credit reports she had run never showed up anything suspicious. Her social security number, luckily, had not been used to open any accounts or apply for any credit or utilities.

So there were no other leads to follow up on whom this mystery person was, and more importantly how they got a hold of her social security number.

It could have been a random input of numbers. It could have been stolen from a database and sold. No telling how many other people have had access to her social security number and what damage they might do!

No telling how many more hours and dollars will be spent to clear her name.

This is another reason why pre employment screening and background checks are needed. There is often more damage than just making a bad hiring decision.

Consulting with a background check expert through a background check company to assist with criminal background checks and employee background checks can help ensure you are getting accurate information.

To purchase Pre-Employment Screening Services or for more information on background check experts, background checks, criminal background checks, employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547

There is always some apprehension involved when one hires an employee. One needs to know that the new hire is both honest and hardworking and that the new hire will earn your confidence as well as confirm that you made a good hiring decision. The last thing an employer wants to discover is that a new employee is utterly unlike the person he or she presented during the interview.

Completing a thorough and detailed pre-employment screening is the most effective way to ease some of this apprehension. An effective pre-employment screening must include more than simply a question and answer session. An essential ingredient in an effective screening is a skills or critical thinking test – the perfect technique to get a more conclusive perspective of the candidate’s capabilities and skill set.

The employee background check is another effective tactic. This background check should include criminal and credit checks, if applicable. It is also important to take it a step further by verifying previous employment and education listed on job applications.

While the background check company effectively runs employee background checks, it is an excellent practice for the employer to run a practical background check. Simply pick up the phone and call the references listed. It is amazing how few people actually call references given by a candidate. It is also amazing what some references actually have to say about the candidate.

Let background check company alleviate your apprehension – allow them to perform pre-employment screening and you can rest knowing whom you can better trust to hire.

For more information about background check experts, background checks, criminal background checks, employee background checks and pre-employment screening please contact us at background check company or call 1.770.426.0547. 

I have worked with numerous cases of employee dishonesty, theft, and fraud for many years. It was always highly unusual if the case implicated a member of management. Statistically, the majority of those employees implicated were working in a non-management capacity.  Obviously I gained this experience not when working at a background check company.

Most of the commotion centers around the fact that managers are expected to operate within a different level of trust and professionalism. That’s the how and the why they are elevated to management in the first place.  Another significant reason is simply that a much smaller percentage of managers are actually committing theft and fraud.

Oddly enough, I see much more emphasis placed on doing drug tests and background checks for management positions from either in-house promotions or external hires. It seems counter-productive to run background checks on these individuals while ignoring the statistics. The lack of complete background checks being run for non-management employees is not wise and potentially extremely costly.

One could question the wisdom of the additional costs incurred by running checks on everyone. I question the risk of dollars lost from even a single case of employee dishonesty – it can be enormous and potentially debilitating to a company.

I have personally witnessed employee theft cases that involved thousands of dollars, some even tens of thousands.  Criminal background checks can reduce or prevent these types of losses.

When an employer runs a consistent check on all employees, the odds of keeping the bad ones out before they can be considered for management is greatly increased. And that is where processing criminal background checks through a background check company can help tremendously.

For more information on background check experts, background checks, criminal background checks, employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547

When thinking about conducting pre-employment employee background checks, one seldom considers how this step can prevent internal theft. I had an employee theft issue a few years ago with a group of associates who were stealing from our company. The losses we encountered could have been prevented if we had more rigorous pre-employment screening procedures in place.

The scam worked like this: one associate would make purchases when his friend was working the customer service desk. This was all within policy – what wasn’t within policy was the additional merchandise that was not rung up – thousands of dollars of merchandise. He confessed that the stolen merchandise was all being shipped back to his native country when we questioned him.

We could not locate the other three associates involved when we finished questioning the first employee. They simply walked out of the store while we questioned the first associate. When we took the case to our local law enforcement, it became clear that the employees we had hired used fake IDs with stolen information. We have yet to find our former employees.

Because we are not background check experts, we did not catch the discrepancy when these individuals applied for jobs. If we had possessed the foresight to take this simple and inexpensive step in the hiring process, we would have saved thousands of dollars in stolen merchandise and valuable resources in tracking down the thieves.  Background check experts would have done what we could not.

Employee background checks are not about prior convictions only. It is the way that pre-employment screening is equipped to do an adequate job and confirm whether or not the person you are considering hiring is EXACTLY who he or she presents himself to be.  

For more information on background check experts, background checks, criminal background checks, employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at background check company or call 1.770.426.0547

Pre employment screening is important for many reasons. One of those reasons is to prevent internal theft. Background checks help to weed out the bad eggs that may have otherwise slipped through the cracks.

We see a significant spike in this sort of scenario during the holidays. There are plenty of people out there who are looking for a job in retail for no other reason than to steal from the retailer. These types of people know that companies are desperate to hire seasonal help and may not be taking the time to carry out detailed interviews, conduct criminal background checks and check references on potential employees as much as they do the rest of the year.

I have conducted many internal interviews after identifying employee theft and you wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve heard them admit that their sole reason of getting a job with us was to steal. It is always their first time getting caught stealing, so they usually tell us everything we want to know in hopes of getting off with a warning.

We conduct employee background checks on all new hires, and nothing comes up on their background checks when we hire them, but next time they won’t be so lucky. Now that we have caught them in the act, criminal background checks conducted by retailers in the future will stop them in their tracks. We know for a fact that pre employment screening has helped prevent us from hiring convicted shoplifters. When we receive the results from the background check company we are able to see when a shoplifter attempts to get a job with us. We always listen to the background check experts and deny employment in order to protect our assets.

When in doubt, use a background check company and look to background check experts to give you solid advice on employee background checks.

To purchase Pre-Employment Screening Services or for more information on background check experts, background checks, criminal background checks, employee background checks or pre-employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547 

One of the toughest things for a small business owner to do is spend money, especially when there is nothing tangible they can hold in their hands as a result of the expenditure. That is exactly the challenge I had as a LP consultant when broaching the subject of employee background checks. Small business owners very rarely take into account the pre-employment screening process when they start the search for employees.

There are many things to discuss as a consultant with a new business owner regarding loss prevention but the number one concern is ensuring the business secures a reputable background check company that employs background check experts with a wide array of experience. It is not merely enough to conduct criminal background checks you must also conduct employee background checks as well. Trying to pull an owner from the belief that a mere review of a job application and an interview is enough of a pre-employment screening to the full understanding of what background checks can achieve is a monumental task.

A perfect example was the owner of a small clothing retailer with five locations located within a largely populated city. This owner had two speeds fast and stop. Trying to get him to sit down for a consultation was tough enough even though he was the one who contacted me for a LP consultation overview of his business. The main problem he had was shrink and he could not determine the source or sources of the bad inventory results.

 I took about a month to review all aspects of the five locations including interviewing all of the employees and management. What I found was staggering. Essentially there were five locations running five different businesses doing whatever each store manager felt was right for their own store. This included the pre-employment screening process. The hiring ranged from a job application and a five minute interview to a store manager who at least conducted two interviews and called for reference checks. There were no criminal background checks, no education checks and no employee background checks. In fact no one including the owner of the business ever entertained the idea of hiring a background check company to conduct background checks for the company.

I reported my results to the owner which included my thoughts on how the losses where occurring as well as the potential solutions to the shrink problem. I told him that his losses were mostly internal and that an in depth investigation would be required to pinpoint the problem employees. There were some minor administrative issues that were easily rectified but the staffing problem was not going to be so easily put to rest.

I explained to the owner that before he went and started replacing employees he needed to retain a company that employed true background check experts that would help him choose the right staff. I explained to the owner the cost of hiring and training an employee and that seemed to get his attention since he would now be losing several employees, the cost of hiring and training them and now have to hire additional employees and invest that training cost once again. We narrowed the choices down to one reputable background check company. This company offered criminal background checks from local to federal levels, educational background checks as well as employee background checks with very reasonable pricing. I was also impressed with the transparency of the company to reveal the backgrounds of their background check experts. This openness put the owner at ease to take the necessary step to put a proper pre employment screening process in place.

It took the owner about six months to sort out his employee theft issues as well as at the same time successfully implementing the new hiring process. He called it a labor of love that in the end kept him from losing his business. He is now one of the biggest proponents for small business owners to implement good hiring processes that screen potential employees before they are allowed to take position of employment.

To purchase Pre-Employment Screening Services or for more information on background check experts, background checks, criminal background checks, employee background checks or pre-employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547