Background checks guide hiring decisions

Garry DeLong’s motto – “We’re sending our family to your family” – is the key reason he uses full background checks for new hires at his business, DeLong Plumbing, Heating & Air, 1309 S. Scenic Ave.

DeLong isn’t alone in his desire to hire the right kind of employees, said Harold Nester, president of Worldwide Resources Inc. Among the services provided by his company, 1325 W. Sunshine St., are background checks on potential hires for business clients.

“Companies seeking employees want to make sure that they’re of good character and have no felony convictions,” he said.  

When to dig in
Job applicants must sign a waiver agreeing to background checks. The most common in-depth background checks go beyond previous employer and reference checks to include a full criminal history, a credit report, motor vehicle records, drug tests and reviews of the applicant’s information on social media Web sites such as MySpace and Twitter, Nester said.

While businesses of all types and sizes can benefit from background checks on job candidates, whether they’re necessary may depend on the nature of the job and the services provided – particularly, if like DeLong’s employees, the applicant will be going into private homes.  

“Background checks are not just for big companies, but for small companies now,” Nester said. “Statistics show the fraud perpetrated on small business by their employees can ruin them, so anyone who has access to their computer systems should have a background check.”

It’s also important to know where to find the information, Nester said, because in most states, data has to be combed through county by county.

What to watch for
Once a job candidate’s information is compiled, the trick is knowing what details to look for, said Damon Holland, owner of Spherion Professional Staffing, 1340 W. Battlefield Road. His business helps companies find new hires.

Holland cites a recent report that was lengthy, showed information on the wrong individual and uncovered a minor domestic charge that was dropped.

“His report was over a page long, but it was nothing that would keep the employer from hiring him,” Holland said.

Not all employers look for the same red flags in background check data, Holland said.

“A business might take a minor theft just as seriously as battery or domestic violence,” Holland said. “I’ve seen companies let people go for very minor things that come up.”

Felony convictions are a key red flag for DeLong, whose company’s background checks look at an applicant’s history dating back at least seven years. Still, he said, there are exceptions.

“If an applicant tells us in advance something such as a drug charge is going to come up and it happened five to six years ago, it may not automatically disqualify them,” DeLong said. “I don’t want someone who has turned their life around penalized for something that happened a long time ago.”

But just as there are exceptions, there are deal-breakers, too.

“We had someone who looked pretty good, but it turned out, he was a pedophile,” DeLong said. “There’s certain things I don’t know if you can be rehabilitated, and we just won’t take a chance with children.”  

Benefits versus costs
Using background checks can be beneficial beyond highlighting potentially risky hires, Holland said, particularly as economic pressures and unemployment have flooded the candidate pool. Some employers use information in background checks to narrow the applicant field, and a factor such as a higher credit score can make the difference in whether the applicant makes the short list for a job.

That’s a technique Nester has used at Worldwide Resources, narrowing a pool of 300 applicants for an administrative assistant by checking driving records and social networking sites.

Nester said his company’s background checks average $70, though services start at $15 and can cost several hundred dollars depending on how deep the company wants to look.

Holland said most companies add a background check into the cost of hiring.

“If a company spends $10 on a background check package, that is better than spending another $2,000 to hire another person,” he said.

For DeLong, the background checks are well worth the added expense.

“If we spend $200 on a background check, that’s nothing compared to what it could cost us to hire the wrong person,” DeLong said. “You can’t quantify the bad publicity if someone’s ring disappears. That’s our reputation, and you can’t quantify that.”