Companies and employers often choose to run a background check before hiring an employee. This may be helpful for the employers to avoid liability and gain confidence in their job candidates. By making a small investment to perform a background check, a company can save thousands of dollars from hiring a bad employee. Some employers are even required by state or federal laws to run a background check on a potential employee or volunteer.

These include:

• Hospitals
• Nursing homes
• Mental health facilities
• Home health care agencies
• Child day cares
• Or any other institutions that provide care for children, sick or disabled persons or the elderly.

Screening process: The basics.

Before ordering a background check, it is important to know the basics of the actual process. There are a few levels of screenings, all of which are determined by how broadly they search into a candidate’s history. A thorough background check will include a criminal record check, alias search, SSN/address search and sex offender registry search. A more in-depth search may include county court records, credit reports, driving records, education verifications, past employments, and reference checks.

The pricing of the background check will vary depending on the agency performing the background check and the level of screening. For example, if the candidate has lived in many counties, the cost of their screening might rise due to county searches and court fees if any apply. However, most agencies will provide a flat rate for a basic background check.

When requesting a pre-employment background check, the employer must have a signed Disclosure and Authorization Form by the candidate before proceeding with the process.

Screening is done! Now what?

Once the screening is completed, a report is compiled by the agency and sent to the employer. A background check is meant to inform the employer about their potential employee, not to decide whether they should be hired. If a report comes back showing negative results, the employer must determine if they would like to move forward with the hiring process. If you choose not to hire the candidate based on the information provided by the agency, you are required to inform them of your intent. If the candidate chooses to dispute the agency will repeat screening. It is then up to the employer to make the final decision about their candidate.

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Blueline can provide nationwide access to thousands of data sources, while providing you access to the most advanced and convenient technology available.  A comprehensive search done by industry professionals is the difference between hiring a person with validated credentials and a clean history, or exposing your organization to substantial liability and risk.  

Blueline provides special pricing to government and non-profit entities.  Please check out the link below for more information and a free demo.

Blueline Services is based in Utah, but has clients in all 50 states.  No matter the need or size of your or organization or department, we have you covered! 

Learn more about how Blueline’s background check services can help your company!

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Apparently, the incident in question occurred when a group of loitering teenagers pestered the store’s employees by constantly asking for free doughnuts and nearly breaking store equipment. The teenagers were told to come back at closing time at which point the employee in question gave several of them doughnuts that contained an unidentified mixture of chemicals. While some took only a single bite of the poisoned pastries, there were others who ate the entire thing. Thankfully, the paramedics were immediately contacted and no one was hurt as a result of the incident.

Police later responded to the scene and confiscated the remaining doughnuts in order to conduct an in-depth investigation. And while the manager of the Oakton location originally defended the character of the employee, Dunkin Donuts has since released a statement apologizing and reporting the termination of the clerk’s employment. But even with the release of this statement, people have still been up in arms as D&D struggles to juggle this new PR nightmare.

The public may still be demanding answers, but business owners are asking the question, “How do we avoid hiring employees like this?” The answer is actually a simple one: background screening checks! With the services offered at Blueline, your company can oversee a comprehensive pre-employment screening process that will make sure you are only hiring the best possible employees. Take full advantage of our background screening checks and don’t get stuck with a #employeefromhell!

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Pros

Those who promote social media background checks point out the fact that a simple glance at a Facebook feed can help a business avoid a potentially bad hire. It does not take too many inappropriate pictures or comments to judge whether or not a potential employee will be a good fit for a company. However, this doesn’t mean that social media is only going to hurt job prospects. Employers can also be impressed when they find evidence of potential candidates engaged in things like community service or having fun with the family. With these different techniques in mind, social media’s ability to provide a quick and easy way to find out more about new employees has made it a popular background check option.

Cons

Those against social media checks will point out the fact that businesses will need to jump through quite a few hoops in order to do them right. There are a number of protected characteristics (e.g. race, age, gender) that businesses cannot consider when doing these checks, but these bounds are often accidentally overstepped when viewing social media profiles. This and other legal concerns associated with discrimination cause many companies to second-guess themselves and avoid social media background checks.

With these cons, many choose to skip the legal issues and avoid these checks altogether. But for others like Jonathon Segal, an attorney and partner at Duane Morris LLP, the potential risks are outweighed by the benefits. He feels that “lawyers think [businesses] are taking a risk [by looking at social media], but they could be taking a bigger risk [by not looking], because then they hire the person that is dangerous or unproductive.” So, for those who are looking to take advantage of the pros and avoid the cons of social media background checks, we’ve put together a few pointers for you:

Work with HR

Don’t leave home without these guys. HR professionals are trained so that they can oversee the hiring process without violating any laws. Make sure they are the only ones who are accessing any social media pages for job candidates.

Create a Consistent System

Working to make a concrete and consistent background check system will help you avoid any discrimination or accidental rule breaking. It would be a good idea to put this together before conducting any checks.

Only Use Public Information

You should NEVER ask for account passwords. When doing a check, make sure to only look at information that is publicly available, otherwise you are running the risk of committing a criminal offense.

Background Check Screening Services

Putting together and actually running background checks can be a bit confusing. Instead of running a potentially dangerous risk, work alongside the professionals at Blueline Services to help you with every step of the hiring process. We can coordinate with your team to make sure that you have an all-encompassing background check that is 100% legal. Visit our website for any questions or to find out more about our full range of services!

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