Making a bad hiring decision is more than just an inconvenience.

At best, you have wasted precious time and money on a recruitment process that didn’t work out. At worst, you are saddled with an untrustworthy individual who can cause some serious damage to your workplace culture and bottom line.

That’s why background checks are essential when hiring new staff.

To choose the right hire, businesses must make an educated decision based on the information available about each candidate's skills, experience, qualifications, and cultural fit. But without all the information, your educated guess is more of a gamble.

Let’s take a look at what background checks involve and why they should be a non-negotiable part of your recruitment process.

Why Background Checks Are Vital In The Recruitment Process

What’s Involved In A Background Check?

The job market can be competitive, and not everyone plays fair. Some candidates may embellish their CV a little or outright lie - perhaps about their experience, their qualifications, or their criminal history.

This happens more often than you may think. A 2017 survey conducted in the US by OfficeTeam discovered that a startling 46% of workers lie on their CVs!

Regardless of how that incorrect information affects their ability to do the job, do you really want to hire someone comfortable with dishonesty?

Background checks can help filter these candidates out by verifying the information they have presented you with, or highlighting relevant information that has been omitted.

It is important to ensure your process is robust and fit for the purpose of the position looking to be recruited.  Some of your checks you may want to consider are: criminal records check, credit checks, qualifications checks, employer history and reference checks, skills checks, online profiles, personality profiling…. There are many options to consider.  The point is ensuring you have the right process in place to minimise the risk while still creating a positive candidate experience.

There are privacy consent requirements you must have prior to conducting these checks.  This is where LD Recruit is able to help you and work alongside your own processes.

Why Background Checks Are Important

There are a number of reasons that background checks are important for your business. They are:

Finding Qualified Candidates - Hiring someone with insufficient experience or qualifications can be disastrous. They will likely struggle to complete their work, meaning you have to invest in extra training, micromanage, or find another resolution – all time-consuming and costly solutions. Simple employment history and qualification checks can minimise the risk of this.

Verifying Good Character - If an employee is willing to lie to obtain a position, they are possibly willing to lie about their job, their colleagues, and potentially even commit fraud. A simple background check can identify and inform you of candidates who embellish their applications and are perhaps not a good character fit for your business.

Create A Safe Workplace - Every employer is legally obliged to provide a safe environment for employees and customers. If a bad hire endangers or harms anyone in your workplace, you could be found negligent for not conducting adequate checks.

Lower costs - Background checks increase your chances of hiring the right person, resulting in boosts to productivity, reduced absenteeism, and lower staff turnover. Conversely, bad hires have the opposite effect. There have been numerous studies over the years with calculations of a cost on a bad hiring reaching well over 5x the persons original salary.

Finding The Right People

Recruitment is all about choosing the absolute best candidate for your business. The most effective way to do this is by gathering as much information as possible, including conducting background checks to ensure you are making the right decision.  There is nothing worse than sitting there 3-6 months later saying I wouldn’t have hired xyz if I had known that.

If you would like some support with your recruitment process, including how and where to include background checks, contact us today.  LD Recruit can work alongside your own recruitment processes and enhance what you already have in place.