When recruiting new staff one of the most important things which you need to do is carry out a background check. Whilst the responsibility is very much on your shoulders to ensure that you get the best person for the job in terms of skills and abilities, it is also your responsibility to make sure that the person who has applied for the job, is in fact who they say they are. Failing to perform online background checks on people can have dangerous ramifications and here are just a few examples which could land you in trouble.
Unqualified
It is no secret that many people will embellish their educational history and their achievements on the resume, something which a background check can validate very quickly. If you fail to carry out a background check then you could very well end up hiring someone who in fact doesn’t have the necessary skills or qualifications for the position. If this happens then it will cost the business a great amount of money, time and resources which could have been avoided with a basic background check.
Dangerous
Hiring someone with a criminal past is always up to the owner of the business but at the very last you should be aware of what the applicants history is. If you hire someone for example who has a history of theft and you weren’t aware of this, you could very easily be opening yourself up to being stolen from, simply because you didn’t carry out a background check. Worse still if you hire someone who has a history of criminal violence and you hadn’t checked them out, you will have to share the blame if that person were to attack a member of staff. As mentioned it is completely up to the business as to hiring people with a criminal background but you always need to know prior to hiring.
Money Management
A background check on an applicant will include a check on the person’s credit history and score. In many cases this maybe irrelevant but if the job involves the handling of cash or the managing of accounts, someone with a poor credit history may not be the best option. If someone cannot manage their own finances or debts, they are more than likely to have problems when it comes to financial management in the business. Once again knowledge is power here and carrying out a background check can help to give you an idea of how well the candidate is able to manage their own money. This is of course not to suggest that this person may have nefarious intentions but they may take a lot longer train and they may also make a catalogue of errors, something which a business can very much do without.
Make sure that you always carry outa background check on anyone who you are thinking about hiring.
