Will An Employer Reach Out To References Before A Background Check

If yous've applied for a job recently, or gone in for an employment interview, and so you've probably been asked to consent to a routine groundwork check. In many ways, pre-employment background checks are becoming as important to hiring managers as your resume, application, and interview responses. Although the background check has become a pivotal component of the hiring process, many job hunters still take countless misconceptions about what background checks are and how they work.

Here are 10 of the near common misconceptions that you should go out of your head before your next job interview.

one. Groundwork checks are solely looking for criminal history.

When consenting to a pre-employment screening, many applicants simply equate "background bank check" with "criminal background check." While employers volition bank check your criminal history, that's not the but thing they are going to look at. Depending on the employer, a background check might too pull up your credit history, your driving record, your ceremonious history, and more than. Employers will also take the time to verify your educational background, your job history, and whatsoever professional licenses or certifications y'all may have. Some groundwork checks even include a drug test.

two. I tin command the narrative of my background bank check with corking references.

The list of professional references you lot hand over at a job interview can certainly help your employment chances, but reference checks are merely one small-scale part of employment background screenings. Just because your references praise you lot to the moon and back, that doesn't mean your prospective employer is going to skip the rest of the check. They'll nevertheless pull up your criminal history, credit history, and more.

3. Employers won't discover out if I prevarication almost job titles, salaries, or employment dates.

Embellishing a resume is such a mutual affair that many job searchers feel like they have to exercise information technology to compete in a crowded chore market. This is a misconception itself. Part of your background cheque includes employment verification, where your prospective employer volition contact the human resource section at your former job and ask nearly your job title, your employment dates, and your salary. Lying about whatever of these things, therefore, is a skillful style to get flagged as a liar.

4. An applicant is powerless to fight back against background cheque findings.

Imitation. If you are ever butterfingers from employment consideration based on background bank check findings, you have a legal right to find out why. Your employer is required to provide you with a copy of the groundwork bank check that led to your disqualification, likewise as to inform you in writing of the decision. While this data usually won't help you get the job, it will alert y'all about whatever imitation information that is coming up on your groundwork bank check, then that yous can set up it earlier your next interview.

5. My social media profiles are off-limits to hiring managers.

While the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is non a large fan of employers making hiring decisions on the basis of social media background checks, that doesn't mean that such checks are illegal—at to the lowest degree non yet. Of class, an employer is non allowed to discriminate against you based on information that they are not immune to know, and wouldn't have known without going online. Such data includes your historic period, race, sexual orientation, and religion. Nevertheless, in most cases, such discriminatory information is absolutely not what a hiring manager is looking for. Instead, they're on the hunt for inappropriate photos, profane comments, or anything else that might signal a person who is a risk to their company reputation. In other words, clean up your Facebook earlier your task interview.

6. All background checks companies provide the aforementioned data.

I of the biggest misconceptions most background checks is that at that place is a big, universal deject of criminal history that employers pull from to run background checks. In actuality, there are many different criminal history registries out there, scattered throughout dissimilar cities, counties, and states throughout the state. Other data, from your driving history to your civil court records, are similarly scattered, which means that i background check may discover unlike data than another. Unlike employers also apply different screening firms to run their groundwork checks, and every firm goes about the chore a fleck differently.

7. If I've never committed a crime, I don't take to worry near the background check.

This is some other large i, particularly amid young people. Many applicants assume that, since they've never been convicted of a crime, they don't take anything to worry about from the background cheque. This belief is incorrect for numerous reasons. Outset of all—and equally we've established—a background check is about more than criminal history. Secondly, background checks don't always return accurate data. If you lot accept a mutual name, your background check might flag someone else'southward criminal record. And if you've been the victim of identity theft, and so your credit history could exist in ruins without you knowing it.

8. There are plenty of employers out there who don't run background checks.

This argument might accept been true ten or 20 years ago, merely today, it's 100% false. With the job market as crowded as its ever been, and with employers becoming more than conscious of threats and lawsuits, you'd be hard-pressed to find any employer these days that doesn't require a background check.

nine. Employers won't hire me if at that place is something unattractive in my background.

While it is truthful that people with criminal convictions face up a harder fourth dimension finding jobs than those with make clean records, the belief that it is impossible to find a job with a black marker on your tape is incorrect. Laws are in place to prevent blanket employment bigotry confronting criminals, and more recent movements—like "ban the box" and expungement—are making it easier for those with criminal histories to compete for jobs.

x. There's no style to know what's going to come up on your background check.

One of the smartest things you lot can do to prepare for a job interview is to run a groundwork check on yourself. As is mentioned above, not every background check is the aforementioned, and there are no guarantees that the information that comes up on your test check will likewise be reflected in your employment screening. However, running a background check on yourself is a keen manner to find out if there is any inaccurate data coming up on your record—before that inaccurate information loses you a task.

Don't miss out on your dream chore because you don't empathise how employment groundwork checks piece of work. Acquire about different groundwork checks and so that you truly know what y'all're up against when you get in for that job interview. Doing and then volition boost your peace of heed and give y'all a improve chance of getting the job.

Still looking for a job at an arrangement yous'll love? DAVIS Companies specializes in finding job seekers best fit opportunities, not only open positions. If you lot are looking for piece of work, accept a look at DAVIS' job openings.

About the Author:

Michael Klazema has been developing products for pre-employment screening and improving online client experiences in the background screening industry since 2009. He is the lead author and editor for Backgroundchecks.com. He lives in Dallas, TX with his family unit and enjoys the rich culinary histories of various quondam and new world countries.