Spotting Red Flags in Screening – What Next?

Looking for a perfect employee for any job is quite a responsible task, ask human resource managers and they will tell you. Sieving through the huge volumes of CVs is no less than a daunting task; then sort out and selecting the candidates to be called for the interviews or tests; making calls to them; setting time for the interview; it’s all very time-consuming.

Passing through all the above mention process and here you have narrowed down the best candidates who have perfect interviews. Now is the best time to have the pre-employment background screening. But what would you do in case if you find something fishy or there are some red-flags in the candidates resume that you have selected after a back-breaking process.

There may have few steps before taking any extreme decision if you come across any candidate.

Step 1: Validation

After seeing any red flag in the CVs of the candidates you decided to go back to the job-board or back to square one, but make sure to verify that the background check actually is about the particular candidate. Any inaccurate data entry may bring wrong output about the candidate and this can easily happen during the employment process. If a candidate had provided the information in handwriting; there is a share chance that he may have missed something or wrote something wrong. On the other hand internet database records may be outdated or not updated on time or maybe incomplete. Make sure the company providing background screening performs quality inspection of the records.

Step 2: Review Policy

Background screening policies and decision-matrix both are beneficial and useful for reliable hiring practices. These policies will guide you in screening while hiring for specific positions. A decision matrix is used to review when screening catches or reveals a criminal record. These both should be updated on regular basis on current regulations. If any candidate fails the background screening, then refer to these tools to verify if those red-flags are within the legal ambit or within your hiring criteria.

Step 3: Pre-Adverse Action

Before you decide to take back your job offer from a candidate, he/she must be given a chance to defend and / or dispute the correctness of the background screening checks. The Fair Credit Reporting Act defines that a candidate must be informed before taking any decision. The candidate should be informed that the job offer may be countermanded on the basis information received in the background screening report. Candidate must get a copy of their background report and also a report of rights under FCRA and a fair time to defend his case.

Step 4: Decision

After any candidate is handed over the pre-adverse notice; the company must give a fair amount of time to them to have a go-over the results of their background screening. If the newly-hired defends his case properly and the record is updated and thus removed; so they are allowed to move forward in the hiring process, and if they fail to explain and their efforts run into sands then next step is obviously to send him an Adverse Action notice.

Step 5: Adverse Action

After you have taken all the measures including pre-adverse action then you are free to take Adverse Action. The notice must be served in writing stating the job offer is being rescinded due to red-flags spotted out in the resume or background screening report. The copy of this report must be provided to the candidate.

Conclusion

With the rising numbers of FCRA claims and more companies subjected to legislation for not following correct hiring process, it is imperative that all organizations, big or small, create a process that is reviewed regularly.