When Should You Use Background Checks When Hiring?         

When someone goes to an interview, they’ll typically be asked about their background, including previous jobs, education, financial data, and even criminal history. In addition, hiring managers have learned not to take this information at face value. Here’s what we learned from experts at UnMask about why and when to use a pre-employment background check.

Employers have every right to ask questions and require a background check, with the exception of inquiries into genetic or medical information. What’s important to keep in mind is that you have to give all candidates equal treatment if you’re requesting a background check. For instance, an employer can’t ask for additional background details simply due to the candidate’s gender or race, for example.

The Best Time Is After Making A Conditional Job Offer

It is recommended to screen candidates after making a conditional job offer, but this should be done prior to finalizing the hiring process. Time-wise, it is better to get a head start on background checks if you want to run one on each one of your candidates. However, it might be illegal to perform a background check if the applicant hasn’t actually been offered the job. This is due to ban-the-box laws, which ban companies from asking about criminal records in the process of application. Under these laws, you must offer someone the job before you can conduct the pre-employment screening. The scope of these laws varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

What Message Are You Sending?

Your applicants could be put off by what they might perceive as a premature background check, especially if they’ve never been subjected to one prior to getting a conditional job offer before. Given the stage in the application process they’re in, they might feel it is inappropriate or unnecessary. They might also assume they’ve gotten the job since they’re being asked for a check and that this check is a pure formality. If they ultimately don’t get the job, they will be disappointed and unhappy with you and your company, especially if the check revealed nothing objectionable.

Screening Each Candidate Can Be Expensive

You might be wasting company funds if you’re screening candidates before deciding you would like them to be part of your team. Statistics show that, on average, employers in the US interview 14 people before hiring one. If you have only one job opening and 14 candidates, you don’t need to run 14 background checks – this would be similar to buying 14 plane tickets for one traveler.

How To Get Background Check Results More Quickly

Speed is the main reason companies want to run background checks on candidates before offering them the job. It only makes sense that they would want to screen completed by the time they’re prepared to make an offer. Moreover, they can welcome the new person to their team and start onboarding them as soon as they’re done with the check.

It’s better to wait until you’ve made a job offer contingent upon background check results. This takes less time than you may think. Choosing an efficient, quality background check service to partner with during this process is of paramount importance. It can take as little as one business day to get reliable and accurate background check results. In addition, you should take advantage of any additional resources about background checks available to you in the process.