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BACKGROUND CHECK
A background check is a review of a person’s commercial, criminal and (occasionally) financial records. Background checks are quite common; in fact, some surveys show that up to 70 percent of employers require employees to undergo background checks before hiring.
An employer may ask you for all sorts of information about your background, especially during the hiring process. For example, some employers may ask about your employment history, your education, your criminal record, your financial history, your medical history, or your use of online social media.
It’s legal for employers to ask questions about your background or to require a background check — with certain exceptions. They’re not permitted to ask you for medical information until they offer you a job, and they’re not allowed to ask for your genetic information, including your family medical history, except in limited circumstances.
When an employer asks about your background, they must treat you the same as anyone else, regardless of your race, national origin, color, sex, religion, disability, genetic information (including family medical history), or age if you’re 40 or older. An employer isn’t allowed to ask for extra background information because you are, say, of a certain race or ethnicity.
What Is Included in a Background Check?
Background reports can range from a verification of an applicant’s Social Security number to a detailed account of the potential employee’s history and acquaintances. Information included in a background check will depend to some extent on the employer and the job involved. For many jobs, a state or federal law requires the employer to conduct a background check. Jobs that involve work with children, the elderly or people with disabilities are examples of jobs that will almost certainly require a criminal background check. Some employers search social networking sites such as facebook for the profiles of applicants.
Here are some of the pieces of information that might be included in a background check. Note that many of these sources are public records created by government agencies.
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Driving records
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Vehicle registration
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Credit records
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Criminal records
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Social Security no.
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Education records
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Court records
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Workers’ compensation
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Bankruptcy
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Character references
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Medical records
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Property ownership
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Military records
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State licensing records
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Drug test records
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Past employers
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Personal references
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Incarceration records
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Sex offender lists
In addition to information gathered from documents or databases, employers may also gather information on job applications or employee questionnaires. Concerns about the highly personal nature of some questions can lead to lawsuits. One such case reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In this case, the Court said personal information required of government contract workers was “reasonable” given the government’s interest in screening employees.
Why Employers Conduct Background Checks?
The employer may want to make sure you are telling the truth. It’s estimated that up over 40% of resumes can contain false or tweaked information, so, employers want to ensure that what they are getting in an employee is what they were promised. (Once hired, an employer may tout an employee’s qualifications — if it is revealed that these qualifications are false, it reflects poorly on the employer.)
The employer may perform a background check to find out whether you actually graduated from the college you said you did or to confirm that you worked at your previous employer(s) during the time stated on your resume or your job application.
These checks can also be used to protect employers from liability issues — if employees behave poorly, employers can sometimes be held responsible for negligence, or failing to do the research required. That is, if a bus company hires someone with a poor driving record, they can be held responsible if the driver gets into a crash; the expectation is that a bus company should check the driving records of any candidate before hiring.
Use of Background Reports
Some employers try to find out about your background by hiring someone to do a “background report” on you. Among the most common are criminal background reports and credit reports. But special rules apply when an employer gets a background report about you from a company in the business of compiling background information.
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Before getting the report, the employer must tell you that they might use the information to make a decision related to your employment, and must ask for your written permission. You don’t have to give your permission, but if you’re applying for a job and you don’t give your permission, the employer may reject your application. If an employer gets a background report on you without your permission, contact the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
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If the employer thinks they might not hire, keep, or promote you because of something in the report, they must give you a copy of the report and a “Summary of Rights” that tells you how to contact the company that provided the report. That’s because background reports sometimes have mistakes. If you see a mistake in your background report, ask the background reporting company to fix it, and to send a copy of the corrected report to the employer. Tell the employer about the mistake, too.
