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Background Checks

When the Background Check Doesn’t Do Its Job

There are background checks, and then there are background checks.  Not all background checks are created equal.  There are different levels of background screening where some searches are far more exacting or more comprehensive than others.

And then there is the matter of the background screening service and the researcher who is actually conducting the background check.    Most are quite good, excellent, in fact, and some just do shoddy work. According to an article on CNN, a background check conducted on an Ohio State University employee overlooked the mere fact that the employee spent five years in prison, from 1979 to 1984 for receiving stolen property.  This in itself would not be the worst of crimes, but then the same employee is suspected of shooting at his fellow employees in response to his learning he was to receive poor performance evaluations.    I suppose some people just take it harder than others.

In fairness to the company that ran the background check and turned up “no records found,” CNN hired out another third party vendor who also came up with no criminal records on the employee.   It is to some degree understandable.   Many times employers ask that the researchers only go back seven years or so, and county criminal records outside the purview are either left alone or ignored.   Sometimes when the employer requests county criminal searches counties archive older records after seven to ten years and remove those older records from either the courthouse or the access terminals.

Many employers do not want the background checking services to go back more than seven years or so.  Many staffing and recruiting services also want to limit the research as it their intent to get the employment candidate hired.   And then some background checking services will only go back seven years to assure a prompter turnaround and to alleviate the cost of the researcher.

I believe you try to go back as far as possible, at least to the time frame accessible on the terminals.   It makes sense to pull whatever is there and then let the employers make up their minds about what it pertinent and what is not.   Some crimes are minor and dated, so, yes, an employment candidate should maybe not be excluded because of some nonsense long in his past.   But then there are those with more severe criminal records.  It would be nice to be aware of these.

So sometime expedience and cost cutting is neither expedient or cheap.   Be thorough.  And check them out before you hire.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.