It can be hard to find the right employees, but it’s worth it to not skimp on the background screening process. If the process seems daunting or too time-consuming, a reputable staffing company can assist you.
Hiring the wrong people can, at the very least, create some major headaches, but in even more troubling (but all-too-common) scenarios, they can cost your business big money or even cause jobsite injury, or in extreme cases, death.
Anyone can come and ask for a job and fill out an application, but if that potential employee is not screened carefully, you’re not only taking a risk with the safety and reputation of your own team, but you could also be putting your clients and their projects at risk.
What is involved in thorough screening?
Right off the bat, it’s important to know that cursory screening can be even worse than not screening at all. Why? Because it can lead to a false sense of security.
If you’re going to screen employees — and you definitely should — it needs to be thorough. But what does that mean, exactly?
Here at Blue Arbor, here are some of the items we examine:
- Education – Did the job applicant really attend the school(s) and/or receive the training that they have included on their job application?
- Employment History – Did the applicant really work at the places they put on their application and did the tasks performed at those former places of employment line up with what they described as their job duties.
- License and Credential Verification – Are any and all forms of identification presented by a job applicant legitimate and valid? What about certifications or credentials they claim to have? Can those be verified?
- Criminal Background Checks – If someone applying for a job in your organization has a criminal record wouldn’t you like to know? While some spotty areas on a person’s record might not mean they’d be disqualified for the job you’re offering — for instance, a single minor incident of criminal mischief committed by the applicant when they were a youngster — other criminal activities in the record, such as violent crimes or felonies, might be serious cause for concern.
- Credit History Checks – Small business owners might wonder why they’d ever want to run a credit history check on a potential employee. While it might not be necessary in all cases, sometimes it’s important to know that desperation over personal finances won’t compromise an employee’s ethics if especially challenging circumstances arise.
- Motor Vehicle Reports – This one should be performed for any employee who will ever be driving for any company-related business, regardless of whether or not they will be driving a company vehicle. The last thing you would want is for an employee with a reckless driving history to cause a bad accident while handling company business.
- Job-related Skills Testing – While a job seeker might put on their application that they are skilled in certain areas, sometimes it’s important that you know for sure. Sometimes employees might not even realize that they would be able to perform certain skills until assessments are performed, so this type of screening can be valuable in ascertaining what your employees are capable of doing.
You can make sure you only hire the very best.
Your company may already have someone on staff in charge of screening personnel according to the above-mentioned areas. If so, that’s great! That means you already understand the value of screening employees. If you don’t have this in place, however, you’ve likely either found that screening potential employees yourself is a time-consuming process, or you skip this step and hope for the best.
Don’t make the mistake of bringing the wrong people in to join your team. In the long run, it will likely cost you a lot more than it would have if you had just conducted a thorough screening in the first place.
This is one of many situations where turning to a reputable staffing company can be a life-saver. Blue Arbor has decades of experience in screening job seekers and matching them to the right employers. Part of that process is not only verifying their education and employment history, but also license and credential verification, criminal background checks, credit history checks, motor vehicle reports, and job-related skills testing.
Click here to learn more about Blue Arbor’s Screening Services.