Pre-Employment Screening
<< Back to Screening & Background ChecksKNOW THE FACTS BEFORE YOU HIRE
Pre-employment screening is commonplace today because employers recognize that the success of their businesses depends upon the quality and character of their employees. In fact, 80% of employers conduct pre-employment background checks on job applicants because pre-employment screens can help employers:
- Ensure that job applicants possess the experience and credentials that they claim to have — and that are necessary to be effective in a particular position.
- Protect assets and better control employee theft.
- Ensure employees’ sense of security and peace of mind.
- Enhance productivity.
- Lower employee turnover.
- Avoid workplace accidents.
- Limit insurance cost increases.
- Control absenteeism.
- Contain healthcare costs.
- Protect against negligent hiring lawsuits.
Another factor driving pre-employment screening is growing concern about violence in the workplace and the litigation that follows. A well-designed and consistently executed employee screening program can offer employers additional protection from negligent hiring lawsuits. These suits typically allege that an employer hired or retained an individual with known violent tendencies, or that such tendencies should have been discovered through a reasonable background investigation, and that the employer then placed the individual in a position where he or she could pose a threat to others. An employer can point to a comprehensive pre-employment background check as evidence that it exercised proper due diligence.
Examples of negligent hiring lawsuits include:
- An employee who had previously been convicted of passing bad checks forged signatures on sales contracts. The court judged his employer negligent and awarded $175,000.
- A guard service was found guilty of inadequately checking a guard’s references when the guard helped steal from their client. The charge: negligent hiring, as they failed to investigate and the employee had a criminal record. The damages paid were over $300,000.
- After driving for a telephone company for only one week, an employee was involved in a traffic accident. The jury learned that the company never saw the employee’s driving record, which had five traffic tickets within 18 months, and awarded the injured party $550,000.
- A car rental company recently paid $750,000 to an employee who was raped by a fellow employee.
- An appellate court awarded $4 million to a woman who was raped by an employee. His employment application indicated no criminal convictions, and the employer did not perform a complete background check.
- A hospital was found negligent in hiring a kidney transplant coordinator who was unskilled in reading medical charts. As a result, a patient was given a transplant of a cancerous kidney, resulting in his death.
QI provides nationwide pre-employment background screening services to businesses and organizations. We complete 90% of our employee background checks within 72 hours. While we strive for fast turnaround, we will never compromise the quality of our research or the accuracy of our reports in order to beat the clock. Too much is at stake.
As part of every background check, QI will:
- Verify the applicant’s identity, work history, and educational and professional credentials as requested.
- Determine whether the applicant has a criminal record.
- Provide reports on the applicant’s driving history, credit history, and character as requested.
- Fully comply with the Federal Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) by researching the most complete and up-to-date records available.
- Make the process quick and easy for our clients’ Human Resources staff.
- Deliver an easy-to-read, understandable final report.
- Ensure that someone is always available to answer clients’ questions. In the course of an employment background check, QI will research a variety of data sources:
- Social Security Numbers
- Prior Addresses
- a.k.a./Alias Names
- Terrorist Watch Lists
Identification Records- State Criminal Records
- Registered Sex Offender List
- Federal Criminal Records
- Criminal Databases
Criminal Records- Education Records
- Credit Reports
- Employment Records
- Civil Court Records
- Driving Records
- Licensing Records
Personal Records
