What Does an Employment Background Check Include?

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Congratulations. You were interviewing for that big opportunity and you landed your dream offer. But before you can get started, the company indicates that they're going to be conducting a background check. What should you do? But don't worry. In this video, I'm going to break down exactly what employers look for when they conduct a background check. Hey everybody, it's Brian from A Life After Layoff, and today I'm going to talk about what employers generally look for in background checks. But before we get too far into it, if you're interested in more career-related content directly from a corporate recruiter, an HR professional, and a career coach, you might want to consider hitting that subscribe button and also that notification bell as well so you don't miss any future posts. Alright, so let's talk about what employers typically look for in background checks. Now say you're going through the interview process, you're lucky enough to land that dream offer, and you get an offer letter. At the bottom of the offer letter, it's almost always going to say something to the effect of "This offer is contingent upon successful completion of a background check and potentially a drug screen." So let's demystify the background check process and how it works. Generally speaking, an employer is going to outsource the background check process to a third party. And what these companies do is they conduct the background check on behalf of the employer. When you fill out the job application on the ATS system, that's actually a legal document. And a lot of times there is going to be a certification that you confirm that everything on that document is correct and accurate. Furthermore, your application becomes a permanent part of your employment record once you get hired. And usually there's a section that gives the employer the right to check your background in the event of a job offer. Now, of course, your background needs to match what you put on your job application. And if there's a discrepancy, you could actually lose your job offer. Once you sign that offer letter, there's usually another form that comes with it that authorizes the company to conduct the criminal background check, also employment verification, and potentially the drug screen. And then they'll refer back to your job application. So if you haven't completed it fully, they may actually nudge you to go back in and finish it. Once they get all that information from you and your release, what they will do is send it off to the third party company. And this third party company essentially takes all of your information and goes and verifies it. Now, how is your background checked? Employers use a variety of resources to check your background. This includes searching databases, verifying employment records that you may have submitted, and verifying with your current or most recent employers. And the most commonplace for the employment verification process to start is with work number. And this is a database that millions of employers submit information about their employees to. And in some cases, they can also verify not only employment records, but also income as well. Now, a little bit of an asterisk there. Employers don't generally check what your previous income was because in a lot of states and a lot of jurisdictions, it's actually becoming an illegal question. But there is some of that information depending on the employer and the location. And if the information in the database is not sufficient enough to verify your employment, then they may actually contact your employer directly. The main things that they'll be checking in the employment verification is that you actually did work for the company, what dates you worked for them for, and what titles you held. They generally will not check what your previous income was. Some companies will check all the way back to the beginning of your work history, but most will only go back seven to 10 years roughly. So let's talk about job titles for a second. In another video, I talked about whether or not you should lie on your resume. And in general, I would not recommend that you lie on your resume, but there might be times where you switch around job titles to suit the industry that you're trying to get into. But there may be some times where I actually would recommend that you massage your job titles to be more commonly accepted. And if that's the case, it's not going to be a big deal in the background check because they're the same level title. So in other words, if I called myself a talent acquisition specialist versus a recruiter, which my actual title was, it's not going to be that big of a deal where it would be a big deal is if I changed my title to be a completely different level. So if I call myself the director of talent acquisition, but in reality, I was only an individual contributor that could pose some major problems and would likely be a major red flag for the employer. Same thing goes for dates of employment. I wouldn't recommend that you'd fudge those dates and give yourself an extra six months or a year of work experience that you don't truly have. The next major check is the criminal background. And let's break that down. It's usually two separate major areas. You've got felonies and you've got misdemeanors. Now felony conviction is much more serious and is certainly going to be a barrier to entry for a lot of companies. Whereas a misdemeanor is a less serious criminal conviction and a misdemeanor won't generally hold you back from getting the job, but there is a little asterisk here. It depends on what the conviction was. Well, they're taken on a case by case basis and the human resource department is the one that makes the ultimate decision on that. Then they'll also check for pending court cases. In general, they'll go back about seven years on your background. However, if you have a felony that was previous to that, it may still flag that and an employer has to make a decision whether or not they want to move forward. If you have a criminal background, it's always better to disclose it at the time of offer to make sure that they clearly understand it, that there's no surprises, and they know exactly what they're going to be getting themselves into when they conduct the background check. So how was the criminal background check verified? So what they'll do is they'll look at all the locations that you've lived at for a given period of time, and they'll actually contact the local courthouses in each one of those areas. And we've had some situations where some courthouses were very antiquated and didn't have an electronic system. So they actually had to go down into a basement and pull a file in order to see whether or not you had a criminal background. So the delays are usually on the court side and getting back to the employer. It's important to note that the criminal background check can check to see if you've got active warrants as well. So if you've got anything in your background that might come up as a flag, it's better to disclose it early into the offer process. And one final asterisk on that is that criminal background checks don't usually report on juvenile infractions. Now the next and final check that employers generally conduct is an education verification. What the education verification is going to verify is that you actually went to the school or got the degree that you claim that you did. So they'll check your high school, they'll check any college that you claim, and they can also potentially check some of your certifications. So if you claim that you're a certified public accountant yet you don't carry a CPA license, that's something that they will flag on the background. And how these checks happen is that they'll contact the university directly and they'll verify the education at that point. And because universities are pretty used to employers contacting them to verify education, this process is usually pretty quick. So let's talk about what happens if you fail the background check. The employer will get a report from the company who's conducting the background check, and in that report it'll be a pretty detailed list of things that they're able to verify or things that they were unable to verify. And if there's an exception, they'll usually note it and they'll explain what the exception was. And then it's up to the employer to either circle back with the employee and ask them to verify, or they could potentially pull the offer right then and there. So it's in your best interest to respond very proactively to help the company get the information that they need to verify your background. And let's end this video with why it's important that you're honest about what you've accomplished and you put on your job applications. Like I said earlier, the job application that you submit is considered a legal document. So if at any time the employer second guesses whether or not you have the credentials that you say you do, and they check it even after you're an employee, you can be terminated for cause for lying on your resume. So think long and hard before you falsify anything and submit it to the employer. And that's especially true for those of you who are thinking about having your aunt or a buddy act as the employment verifier. You have to ask yourself how important this job is to you. If you potentially lie on it and you get an offer, there's a high likelihood that you could get it rescinded. So I would suggest doing the right thing, being forthcoming with your background and make sure that you actually have the credentials that you say you do. If you're somebody that has got an offer rescinded and now you're back to the drawing board or you're somebody that hasn't gotten any offers at all, that's actually something that I specialize in. I have a website called alifeafterlayoff.com and it's loaded with career tips on how to get yourself to the finish line. And I share some of my deepest and most intimate knowledge in the form of some training courses. The first one is called Resume Rocket Fuel and it's designed to teach you how to write a legitimate resume that is recruiter approved and is designed to get you that first round interview. And once you get that first round interview, it's up to you to sell yourself throughout the rest of the interviewing process. And that's where the ultimate job seeker bootcamp comes in. And it's going to take you through each step of that interview process ultimately to get you to that dream offer. And if you want to skip the recruiter altogether and unlock the hidden job market, consider unlocking LinkedIn. And of course, I'm available for some private one-on-one coaching sessions. You can reach me through my website for that. Congratulations on your job offer. Hopefully you'll get through that background check without any issue and we will see you on the next one.