Learn Everything About a Background Check Form

A background check is an absolute necessity if you are looking to hire someone for your company.

Reasons for Conducting a Background Check

This background check should go beyond the realms of the standardized resume and encompass other aspects of a candidate’s personality like his character reputation. This is to ensure that you are not only hiring someone who is best qualified for the position at hand but also the most desirable in terms of attitude and behavior.

The responsibility is entirely yours to make sure that you hire people who do not add to your labor costs through lower efficiency, increased on-the-job injuries and increased lawsuits.

A background check with information from consumer reporting agencies is the best solution to counter these problems. These agencies provide you and other third parties with information on an individual, “consumer reports” to be precise, that help in these decisions.

A consumer report contains these bits of information about an individual: credit worthiness, credit capability, credit standing, expenditure patterns, standard of living, moral character, personal traits and reputation. An investigative consumer report is that part of the report that deals with information about the person’s lifestyle, spending patterns, character, personal habits and traits and reputation. Employers and credit-issuing agencies use these reports during the pre-employment screening process or before advancing credit to an individual.

Background Check Process

The background check process is governed by the laws laid down by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, or the FCRA. This act makes it mandatory that an Applicant Release Form be signed and submitted to the background screening company before any investigation to delve into the background of an individual begins. As per the rules established in the act, the applicant must also be provided with a Summary of Rights along with this background check form.

The Applicant Release Form bears an individual’s consent to any consumer reporting agency to delve into his/her credit and other personal details, and to provide these details to the person or organization that has requested this investigative background check. The individual thus absolves all the parties involved in this process of the liability and responsibility of conducting the entire process.

The employer may decide to take an adverse action, such as not hiring an individual based on his/her background check report. In such an instance, the employer must send the person a “pre-adverse action disclosure,” accompanied by a copy of the report and a detailed explanation of the consumer’s rights contained under the FCRA.

A comprehensive background check carried out after filling out all the necessary details in the background check form and complying to the rules laid down by the FCRA involves far less costs than hiring someone who consequently requires remedial training, proves to be less efficient, gives rise to low morale among co-workers, and becomes involved in violent instances leading to workplace injuries. This process will also guard your company’s budget and goodwill that may be compromised through bad hiring decisions.