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What is a Background Check?
Home » Human Resources » Background Checks » What is a Background Check?Background checks are investigations into a person’s financial, vocational, and/or personal past. Companies use background checks to verify that an employee is who they say they are and does not have anything in their background that would hinder the company.
Almost every company in the United States today is familiar with the idea of the background check. According to a 2005 study by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), ninety-six percent of personnel officers reported that their companies performed some sort of background check on job applicants.
This statistic encompasses every type of background check, from document verification to criminal record searches. Eighty-five percent of companies said that they at least verify an applicant’s legal right to work in the United States while other companies contact an applicant’s references and/or an applicant’s former employers.
Many times, companies will hire private investigators or businesses that specialize in searching an individual’s background. These businesses search court records, run credit reports, interview neighbors, and much more in order to learn everything they can about an individual.
The advent of the technological age has made background checks easier and much of the information covered in background checks is now available on the Internet. In part due to this relative ease, many companies (as well as the federal government) now require some sort of background check before hiring applicants while others perform background checks at regular or random times during an employee’s tenure.
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