How effective is background screening for new employees
Background screening is the simple method of conducting qualifications checks for probable candidates before their final selection for a job post or executive position. It is similar to a background check done by law authorities while making legal documents, but in this scenario, only a few calls are made to past recruiters of the candidate to identify the authenticity of their claims.
The prime goal of doing this screening is to adjudge if the worker/candidate is actually claiming the truth with respect to their formal education, work experience and other personality based aspects like insanity.
Who Does This Screening?
Generally, this testing begins with scrutiny of legal record details and cross-verification of these details via trusted sources. This is done mainly to eliminate corporate information theft, espionage and eliminating any backlashes from unworthy candidates.
This testing is done by government departments and private companies alike, but the manner of testing is slightly different. Government background checks can even involve police verification of the house and bank accounts. In corporate scenarios, this check is limited to scrutiny of educational qualifications, past experience and future outlook. Sometimes, economical information and family details might also be checked to verify credibility of the person's social status.
What Problems Does This Method Have? Is It Foolproof?
Most background checks are done via referrals. The authenticity of the referral may not always be genuine. This is the biggest issue with this method. Anybody can fake a referral and act as a genuine reference for the candidate.
Secondly, many details about the candidate may still be invisible from the recruiters like mental sanity. Not all candidates who have mental health issues may exhibit physical symptoms like erratic behavior, anger management issues and similar issues in front of the recruiter. Later on, due to improper employee satisfaction and no benefits, these traits might come out in the open.
Even the economic background can be faked. When qualifications can be fake, even the source where past salaries came from can be faked. Many candidates lie about their current CTC because they want to earn more, but most intelligent recruiters can catch this by conducting a thorough interview of the candidate. For e.g. a candidate might boost his annual CTC from $40,000 t0 $50,000 to garner more salary from you, but may not have the actual experience for that work. By paying off touts, they can get fake salary slips made that look real. However, you can cross-question them in person to judge their actual experience.
In most severe cases, many candidates are identity thieves who act as a different person, imbibing their personality and traits to behave like them and score a job. This happens often and fools many recruiters.
The legal propensities a candidate may have might not always be revealed unless the police is contacted. Since most candidates supply illegitimate legal record details, there is no perfect way to adjudge these propensities.
Is It Useful? Is It Important To Do Such Screenings?
Yes! It helps any company to evaluate its prospective staff to get an insight about their character, mindset, financial position, education qualifications and criminal background, if any.
This method of confirmation helps them to eliminate any protective risks. No one wants to deal with a problem if the problem could have been avoided in the first instance.
Background testing, only to some extent, enables companies to evaluate prospective staff's character, character, mind-set, fitness and other aspects. The need for confirmation of these aspects is in order to eliminate prospective protection risks. Having said this, as we saw earlier, a fresh qualifications does not actually mean that the applicant will not be a protection danger later on. Also, the simple presence of fresh details is no guarantee that the candidate's previous has actually been that fresh. It only indicates that the applicant has not been caught for any legal functions, or any economic mismanagement, or litigations prospective has not come to light or recorded. Also there is a chance of some companies using qualifications testing as a way for discerning and taking advantage of prospective applicants by breaking their privacy.
It is also essential to know how often the companies that offer qualifications testing services upgrade their details and to create sure they have the latest details. If a candidate's qualifications details display trouble spots, this needs to be confirmed to create sure it is not a false information or that it is not of such nature that it inhibits his or her work in the company later on. Some companies mix confirm with prospective workers when there is a mismatch and undertake detailed career sources, character reference check, identification and address confirmation and record of credit. Holes in career usually cause needless setbacks and comprehensive assessments. It is best if such job hunters give complete details beforehand to facilitate the procedure and to improve their chances of getting employed.
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