When you’re making new hires with a goal for long-term success, vetting your candidates is the most important step in the process. When a candidate has been recruited via word of mouth or comes through a recommendation from an executive-level staff member, it’s easy to waive off any official vetting and assume that any close connection referred by a trusted co-worker can be considered trustworthy, too.
Unfortunately, that’s just not always the case. And that doesn’t mean the co-worker who made the referral is untrustworthy, it just means that people are good at hiding aspects of their lives that will be seen as problematic in particular roles at work or elsewhere. To protect your company from expensive hiring mistakes, every HR department should establish a required protocol for vetting all job candidates regardless of who refers them or their potential pay grade.
Vetting with Background Checks
Beyond the application and interview process, background checks may be one of the most important steps in vetting job candidates. In addition to confirming that a candidate meets your most basic standards for hiring – like in educational achievements or driving records, for example – a thorough background check can help you verify ownership of important credentials and licenses, establish their potential to hold required security clearances, and even review their social media personas for problematic activity and connections.
It’s important to understand how local and federal laws apply when considering all of the results of a background check before hiring. Some information is fair game, others require a much more nuanced approach before sending their resume to the circular file.
ClearStar has spent more than 25 years developing HR solutions and now provides tools to assist employers with recruiting, background screening, data security, drug screening, and more. Ask ClearStar how our background check solutions adhere to the legal requirements of your field and your location while helping you hire the highest quality candidates.
