Don't Rely Solely on Criminal Database Searches

Oh, the magic of the Internet. No longer do you have to take a chance the employee you just hired might have a criminal background, one that could compromise your business's profits, security, and even safety. Instead, you can rely on a quick search of public records to tell you whether or not a potential employee has a criminal background, right?

Not quite.

Accurate background checks help hire fairly

The fact is, if you want to do a background check on potential employees before you hire them, you have to be sure that the results you get are accurate. That's very hard to do -- impossible, even -- with a standard search of public records that rely on automatic criminal filtering.

The problem is that public records are often mixed with inaccurate or so-called "false positive" information. What that means, basically, is that when you screen a potential employee, he or she may be shown to have a criminal record when in fact that's not true.

If you use automatic criminal record filtering to search for potential employees' criminal backgrounds exclusively and don't double-check to make sure results are accurate, you could be missing out on stellar candidates – and they could be unfairly penalized. What should you do instead? Verify your sources. How? By using an accuracy service like VeriFirst.

Double check employee backgrounds

VeriFirst helps remove the riffraff AND inaccurate results from your background check searches. By using this accuracy service, you can be sure that the background check results you get are as reliable as possible.

VeriFirst offers you, as a customer, a complimentary "DoubleCheck." This means VeriFirst FCRA certified staff manually reviews potential hits on a criminal record database search and updates any records found prior to releasing results to you. This helps ensure that the results you get are factual, and that your applicant(s) won't receive false positives. This gives you the peace of mind that comes with knowing that the employees you hire can be trusted with your business.

How does VeriFirst work?

When any criminal file is matched with a potential applicant during a criminal database search (including the National Sex Offender Search, International Watch List Search, or National Criminal Search), and those records match the applicant AND indicate that there's been a conviction for the crime in question, VeriFirst DoubleCheck reviewers will adjust VeriGuide logic to denote a "Conditional" and/or "Fail."

If criminal records do not come up matching the applicant, or if records are returned that don't indicate a known conviction, VeriFirst DoubleCheck reviewers will "Exclude" those records and will adjust the VeriGuide logic to a "Pass," so that the applicant is cleared for hire. It's a smart, cost-effective, and easy way for you to verify that the applicants you hire are trustworthy, without having to try to do the legwork yourself; instead, you leave it to the experts.

More than just Employee Background Checks

VeriFirst doesn't just focus on your potential hires. It can also help you solidify background checks for your vendors, and assist with customer ID verification. If you are a landlord, you can use it to verify background checks for tenants both in student housing and in multifamily rental units.

Keep yourself, your employees, your clients – and your business – safe. Contact us and learn more about what we can do for you.