Most businesses today need some sort of background screening process. It’s an important part of the pre-hiring process, to make sure your employees and volunteers don’t have any issues bubbling in their background.

Who Needs Clearances?

Who needs background screening? In a word, everyone. Your company needs to screen all potential hires, at all levels of the organization, to ensure the veracity of applicants’ resumes and ensure that there is no criminality in their backgrounds.

Equally important, background screening is legally mandated for any employees or volunteers working with children, the elderly, or the disabled. It’s essential that you comply with all state and federal laws in this regard, as well as any regulations specific to your industry.

What Types of Clearances Do Your Employees and Volunteers Need?

The type of clearances you need depends on your industry, the type of work you do, and who in the general public your employees and volunteers come in contact with.

For example, if you’re an educational organization (school, daycare center, amateur sports group, or something similar), state regulations mandate specific types of background checks for all employees and volunteers – child abuse checks, a criminal history review, and a federal criminal history review (via FBI fingerprinting). Organizations offering elderly care and services for the disabled have similar screening requirements. Depending on your specific organization, you may also want to include screening for criminal records, driving records, credit reports, and more.

Know Your Timeline

Every individual background check takes time to complete. A simple credit check can be done within an hour. Requesting prior employment records can take two or three days. Most criminal background checks take three days to a week. FBI checks take up to 30 days.

That’s if everything goes according to plan, of course. If records aren’t computerized, the process can take longer. Mistakes or incomplete records can require checks to be rerun. In addition, you may have to spend time looking up prior employer contact information if the applicant does not supply it to you.

In short, you should allow at least a week to complete most background checks. If the screening involves FBI fingerprinting, double that time.

Establish a Budget

How much should you spend on background screening? Depending on how thorough you want to screen, you can spend anywhere from $40 to $100 total for the various individual records necessary. Add another $50 or more on top of that for FBI fingerprint checks.

Using a Third-Party Organization

You can attempt to do all your background screening internally, which requires the necessary amount of staff and staff time. Or you can outsource some or all of these checks to a third party, such as ProVerify, and take all the stress and workload off your company’s shoulders.

Let ProVerify Handle Your Background Screening Needs

ProVerify offers a variety of popular background screening services, including:

·         County criminal searches

·         Multi-state criminal searches

·         Federal criminal searches

·         I-9 Verification for SSNs and immigration documents

·         Educational validation

·         Credit reporting

·         DMV motor vehicle record checks

·         Sex offender registry checks

·         Social Trace to confirm residency

·         Drug screening

·         Suspected terrorist watch list

·         Employment verification

·         FBI fingerprinting

ProVerify can handle all your background check needs. It’s important to you, which means it’s important to us.

To learn more about ProVerify’s background screening services, contact us today