We are living in a digital age, and many of the daily activities that require a lot of time to perform are much shorter and more effective. Just think about it and you will see that we are right with this claim of ours. One of the finest examples of how effective digital technologies can be is that you can run a background check on practically anyone. When we say that, we mean it literally.
We are talking about the moment when an employer runs a background or criminal record check on a person who is interested in getting a job. While this is not something that should be considered crucial information that can determine the line between accepting and rejecting, it surely plays an important part. However, there is a certain factor that can really set the difference.
If we are talking about an offense that will affect the performance of the position you would like to work at, the chance that the application will be accepted is pretty slim. Back in the day when this kind of data wasn’t as transparent as it is today, only police can give someone this kind of information. Nowadays, there are a lot of tools and apps that can provide you with this kind of data. If you would like to take a look at one of these, be sure to visit this website.
Not only that, we can see that the perception of people who have been in jail is now widely different from how it looked before. Today, many employers don’t have a problem with hiring ex-cons, because of all the measures of precautions. Nevertheless, they are interested to see if their potential employee has some interesting background. Let’s see how you can do this easily in a couple of steps.
Step 1: Employer Education
Before any kind of background check can be executed properly, is to have a certain level of education. Every employer needs to be fully aware of the document called FCRA, or Fair Credit Reporting Act. We are talking about the set of laws that describe the limitations every employer needs to be aware of when having an interview with a person who has this kind of background.
Basically, this set of laws shows what the boundaries are. For example, an employer shouldn’t use this kind of data in the first part of the process. Of course, we are talking about the interview. During this process, employers are not permitted to use it until the latter parts. If the candidate has done something that could harm the work itself, it will be discussed after the first part of the interview.
Step 2: Choose the Proper Type
Before you can run any kind of record checks, you will need to know what type you are looking for. If we are talking about official institutions, the law will inform you what kind of information is needed to perform it. Since we are talking about criminal record checks, you should know that there are three main types of checks or reasons why you would want to ask for this kind of information.
The first and most common one is for a job or volunteer application. Furthermore, there are two other types, immigration, and by-law licenses. No matter what the type, the person who asks for this kind of info would like to check if a certain person has been convicted or has some criminal offense. Official institutions, or police, will give you a clearance letter if that person is clear. With apps, you will just receive the information, not a document.
Step 3: Providing Fingerprints
It doesn’t matter if you are interested in getting a background check of your future employee or your own, you will certainly need to have your fingerprints taken. Sure, this is the case only if you are going to the official institution. The local police service or company, credited with this kind of job, will use them as a way of finding everything about the person who is a subject of this kind of check.
However, this is not the only piece of information that you will be obligated to submit.
These will be manifested in the form of, well, a form. Filling out these, along with providing the fingerprints, is an absolute must. Otherwise, you cannot hope that you will receive the proper information from the institution or any kind of app or software that has been credited with the right to have this kind of info.
Step 4: Adverse Action Process
In case the employer has decided not to employ a person that has this kind of background, he or she will need to follow a certain process. We are talking about adverse action. In the first entry of this article of ours, we’ve mentioned FCRA. It describes the process of how the employer should handle it. Otherwise, the candidate can undertake some of the actions against the employer.
It means that the business owner needs to notify the candidate about the reasons why the application was rejected. Naturally, all of the documents that have been provided as a part of the process need to be returned to the person who gave them. By handling the whole process well, the business owner or HR will have no problems in the future.
The Bottom Line
As we’ve said in the beginning, running a criminal record check is something that will play an important role in many processes. Certainly, you will need to think about doing that in a lot of cases. However, we can see that there are a lot of people who are not sure about how this should be done.
Therefore, we’ve decided to provide you with this kind of information. Here, you can take a look at some of the crucial steps, which will provide you with a chance to have a much easier and smoother process. We are sure that these steps will provide you with enough insight to help you to make it shorter.
