With the slew of background check companies online it can be easy to get swayed into paying for what appears a quick and easy answer to your hiring problem. However, as a business owner you should never do background checks. Sounds kind of funny coming from the due diligence people, right? But the biggest misconception about who we are and what we do at Avent-Guard is that “we perform background checks” for businesses. Nope, we don’t.
Matter of fact we advocate AGAINST solely doing background checks because they are unreliable. There are so many factors that go into what a background check is and what it’s not that I won’t waste your time explaining them all. Here is a few reasons why you should not do background checks
1. Not all government and law enforcement agencies are required to report information. For that matter most are not required to have it available online.
2. Just because somebody had something show up in their past doesn’t mean that’s how they conduct business today. People Change. Just because someone has something in their background does not mean they can’t deliver on the service they offer.
3. Just because someone doesn’t have anything show up in a background check doesn’t mean they are not participating in fraud today. At best background checks are only good if someone has caught. Without fully assessing someone you don’t know if they are trustworthy or not. A background check won’t give you that information.
Unless you are doing a full assessment and analyzing the big picture you’re going to miss the details. If all you need to know is if someone has a criminal record then do a background check but use a credible background source that pulls from actual law enforcement databases. (Again, states such as Colorado and many others don’t report to the databases) Also realize you get what you pay for and there is a good chance the $9.99 on-line site that ran the check doesn’t have all the information you need to make an educated decision.
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