Companies want to ensure their new hires have the necessary skills, qualifications, and experience. This is why a background check is an essential part of the process. Selecting a screening company that follows FCRA compliance rules is also crucial. Otherwise, you risk legal hang-ups and a potential lawsuit.
Legal Compliance
A background check company must be legally compliant and follow laws and regulations. This can help protect your company from costly fines, penalties, and lawsuits. A company must also be able to verify the information it receives from a background check. This includes making sure the notification is accurate and up to date. Moreover, you want a company that can ensure compliance with EEOC and state laws and regulations so they won’t discriminate against the applicant or employee. It’s essential to make sure you get the applicant or employee’s permission to perform a background check and that they understand how you will use that information. Legal compliance is essential to business operations and can be a major headache for companies that don’t adhere to it properly. Non-compliance can lead to litigation, work stoppages, and costly penalties, damaging your reputation and bottom line.
Reliability
When choosing a background check company, you need to consider the reliability of their service. This includes ensuring that their results are up-to-date and complete. For example, a reliable background screening vendor should have connections to local county courthouses that provide updated records for the jurisdictions the applicant has lived in. They should also have experience in multiple areas, including drug and alcohol testing, criminal checks, social media checks, and verifications, among other services. Reliability can be measured by internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and inter-rater reliability. Generally, the more times a test is administered on the same sample, the more likely it will be to measure something reliably. Another common type of reliability is split-half reliability, which uses randomization to divide a set of measures into two halves and compare their results. If the two halves provide similar results, it suggests that internal reliability is vital.
Customer Service
When looking for a background check company, consider their customer service. It would be best to have someone who could answer your questions and resolve any issues quickly. Good customer service involves professionalism, active listening, a customer-centric focus, and problem-solving. It also means having the right tools to respond promptly to customer concerns. A good vendor with excellent customer service will go the extra mile to ensure everything goes smoothly, even when things stutter or stall for reasons beyond their control. That’s important because you may have candidates with questions you need answers to quickly.
Pricing
When choosing a background check company, you should consider several factors, including pricing. The right vendor can help you get the most bang for your buck by providing transparent pricing, flexible billing and payment options, and the ability to customize screening packages based on your needs. A good background check service provider should also help you develop a screening protocol for your organization. This can include helping you decipher the information in a background check report and negotiating with candidates regarding adverse or pre-adverse action letters. A good background check service company should also be able to comply with all relevant laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). It should also offer various search options, such as multi-jurisdictional criminal records and national credit reporting services.
