Employee background checks are the first protection tool for businesses of all types and sizes. Screening potential candidates can uncover information they don’t reveal in their interviews.
Most background checks can search as deep as you’d like and most times they spare business owners the problems of dealing with unruly employees – and even lawsuits.
However, no matter how useful and effective background checks are for businesses, many owners fail to perform them when looking to expand their teams.
And they don’t do it for a variety of reasons: from monetary reasons to lack of time, to the need to hire someone immediately. At ARS, we constantly emphasize the importance of doing these types of checks for all your employees.
Employee background checks – as useful as they are – may not always uncover rogue employees and the reasons behind that are diverse.
Two Top Reasons Why Rogue Employees Slip Past Scrutiny
1. Businesses Don’t Dig Deep Enough
Most business owners, when looking for a new hire, are short on time and need to fill a position right away. While the urgency is understandable, acting in a hurry and commissioning a superficial background check for potential candidates is a crucial mistake. This is especially true for high-level executives.
We read and hear of high-level executives who fudged their education credentials and were found out years later when they were waiting for a promotion to an even higher position.
Behindthose situations stand superficial background checks that the company performed. A detailed background check is recommended for any position in your company, but it is a must for high-level executives.
2. You Don’t Follow Your Gut Feeling
No matter what type of screening you commission, the recruitment process is more than background checks. As a business owner or head of human resources, you need to be involved. This means doing your own checks and following your gut.
If something doesn’ feel right or doesn’t fit with what the candidate tells you, it’s often because there is more to the story.
Anything can be an alarm signal: from the way they talk about their previous roles and employers to hiding small things you uncover via background checks.
Sometimes an omission can be just an innocent mistake. But when those omissions turn into falsified positions and degrees, that’s when red flags should start to pop up into your mind.
There are countless other stories of employees who were hired after exceptional interviews, only to prove they were the wrong person for the job, and they stole from the company for years.
There Is No ‘One-Size Fits All’ Solution
As with everything, there isn’t a one-size fits all solution. Employee background checks can fail. But, paying attention and choosing the right background employee check for the position you need to fill is the first step.
This, paired with your own investigation and listening to your gut during interviews, can help you spot rogue employees early and – in the long run – will save your business thousands of dollars.
How about you? Has a rogue employee ever slipped past you?