A new employee is an investment: it can take up to a year for a new staffer to be fully trained and comfortable enough in their role to start contributing to the bottom line. New employees who can hit the ground running are an asset to your business.

But if you hire the wrong person, there are a range of potential consequences. In the best case, you lose a few thousand dollars in recruitment and hiring costs. In the worst case, you put the entire business at risk. It sounds alarmist, but it’s happened! People have been hired without proper background checks, only to go on to defraud the business, steal its proprietary secrets, or approve products that wind up being harmful to customers.

In short, background checks are a good business decision. Hiring a Private Investigator can help by:

• Verifying the applicant’s identity: It might seem far-fetched, but people have applied for jobs under names that are not their own. There are a variety of reasons why people do this. For example, if their name happens to be Charles Manson, they may choose to go by a middle name instead; if they’re wanted for armed robbery in another jurisdiction, they may use someone else’s identity to avoid capture. In either case, you want to be sure you’re hiring who you think you’re hiring.
• Checking the applicant’s employment and education history: We all embellish a little when it comes to the skills, experience, and training we have, but what if that information is completely fabricated? You don’t want to hire someone who doesn’t have the basic skills to do the job; you want to know where they went to school, where they worked, how long they worked there, and what roles they held. You also want to verify any professional licenses or affiliations the applicant lists in their resume.
• Looking for any bankruptcies and checking the applicant’s credit history. Someone with a checkered financial past could be a risk to your company. If they’ve had problems with their finances that they’re trying to conceal, that’s cause for concern.
• Checking for a criminal record: Not every conviction is a deal-breaker for an employer but having complete information about a job candidate’s past ensures that everything is out in the open.
• Examining the applicant’s driving record: If you’re hiring a driver or someone who will have to handle heavy equipment, this is an obvious consideration, but a driving record also speaks to an applicant’s judgement and attitude towards safety. If the job requires a car, a background check can also verify that the applicant has a reliable vehicle or is in a position to get one.
• Verifying the applicant’s references: If references play a significant role in your decision to hire, you want to be confident that the president of XYZ corporation is who they claim to be and not your applicant’s roommate’s boyfriend.
• Searching for lawsuits or judgements against the person: This part of a pre-employment check can determine if the applicant owes a large amount of money or if there’s a civil complaint against them. A sexual harassment suit, for example, could mean that the applicant isn’t a good fit for your company, especially if you’re hiring for a supervisory position.

Why hire a Private Investigator?

You can do some of these checks yourself, so what advantages does a Private Investigator offer?

• Experience: Private Investigators know what to look for and where to look for it.
• Efficiency: Private Investigators know the ins and outs of background checks, so they’ve got their expert procedures down to a fine art. They can get you the information you need quickly and with no fuss.
• Effectiveness: Private Investigators pride themselves on their thoroughness and precision. They won’t let up, and they won’t let anything get by them.
• Equipment, methods, and techniques: Private Investigators know what’s needed for this kind of work. Nothing beats the cutting-edge technologies and procedures they use in their investigations.

Today’s employment market is candidate-driven, and businesses are scrambling to hire qualified, reliable staff. Because of this, the risk of bringing in the wrong people is higher than usual. Partnering with a Private Investigation company can help you get the process back under your control by vetting your job candidates thoroughly and efficiently.

Looking for the best company to hire? Star Quality Private Investigations is your go-to choice for corporate investigations. With over 20 years in the business, we have extensive experience, a highly trained team of professionals, and the resources to provide you with definitive answers to your questions. We’re proud to have earned the trust of a broad spectrum of companies. Learn about the many types of background checks we handle, and then contact us to talk about how we can make your hiring decisions fool-proof!