Employee recruitment: the urgency of employment and reference checks

The background screening process includes various types of checks, including employment and reference checks. These two verification processes are essential elements for anticipating one-sided claims that candidates make in their resumes.

Facts vs claims: Seeing past the rose-tinted glasses

Candidates often exaggerate the information they present in their resumes, including their competencies, work experience, and even remuneration. The goal, of course, is to make the resume more appealing and increase their chances of getting hired. So naturally, basing the recruiter’s decision solely on the candidate’s unilateral claims is not a wise decision.

Examining resumes and conducting in-depth interviews with candidates are two typically used methods in the recruitment process. However, both methods only extract information from the candidate’s side. Due to its one-sided nature, the information still needs to be carefully verified and validated.

To do this, recruiters need to conduct comprehensive employment and reference checks. Both are carried out to obtain more information about the candidate that may not have been obtained during the interview or in the CV, such as work performance and behavior at the previous company, the candidate’s lifestyle, and so on.

From poor performance to falsification of payslips

This first case is about vital information that was found during the background checking process of a candidate who was applying for a job as an administrative executive.

After a reference check with the candidate’s former superiors, several red flags were found. During the three months of working at the company, the candidate did not carry out his duties properly. In one instance, the candidate was caught falsifying an official letter for personal gain by using a company stamp without the permission or approval of his superiors. Apart from that, the candidate was found to be falsifying sick certificates.

In another case, during a reference check, it was revealed that a prospective employee had lied about his working period. Through this verification, it was also discovered that the candidate had falsified his pay slips from the previous company.

These are just small examples of the kind of information that can be identified through background checks. It is no doubt that insights like these are vital for decision-making in the recruitment process.

Competent third-party support

To obtain more comprehensive and accurate results, the two background screening methods need to be combined with other types of checks, such as criminal, media, and education checks.

To achieve this, companies require the involvement of professional and competent third parties skilled in conducting background screening with qualified and standardized methods, resources to verify data with relevant official agencies, access to public databases, and the expertise in conducting interviews with referees to gather information about the candidate’s past performance in an objective and comprehensive way.

Integrity Asia has developed an employment screening application,  Prisma,  which is a one-stop channel for managing prospective employee screening requests submitted by organizations. Prisma facilitates real-time status updates, making it easier for clients to check the ongoing screening process. Background screening results are presented in a complete and accurate analysis report.

For more detailed information about employment background screening and other compliance services,  contact us immediately.

Putri
Image by pch.vector on Freepik