The steps to take when vetting prospective employees

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When employing new staff, robust vetting is essential, particularly given the  prevalance of identity theft, failure of employees to disclose information and  inadequate vetting by some vetting and recruitment companies.

No turning back

Be careful; once you’ve employed someone, there is no turning back.  If you should later discove deficiencies in an employee’s credentials, it will too late to terminate their employments.  So, make sure you undertake thorough background checks and answer any pertinent questions to avoid potential problems down the track.

Some simple steps for accurate & robust vetting

  • Obtain a signed authority — this is always required at some stage of the process
  • Complete a criminal history check — get an applicant’s signed authority to do this. It is important to know where they have lived during their adult life to ensure your criminal history checks are in the countries they have lived.
  • Check qualifications — don’t just accept a qualification is real. Physically confirm that the applicant has a specific qualification. It’s easy to confuse a diploma with a degree. This “mistake” can be an important one.
  • Memberships — check out the professional bodies and associations an applicant is part of.
  • Employee references — previous employers should be spoken to and confirmation obtained on dates of employment. There is nothing wrong with asking a previous employer questions about an applicant’s work ethic, reliability and ability, etc.

Other tips

With an applicant’s authority, a credit check is also advisable. And in some circumstances, particularl where integrity and honesty is essential, it may be appropriate to conduct social media searches.

The levels of vetting

There are various levels of vetting.  As you would expect, the process for senior management is more robust and requires more in-depth history search than for junior or intermediate employees. And some questions are more relevant to management positions such as, bankruptcy, previous companies going into liquidation.

For any ongoing help in protecting your business contact Omega Investigations.

Read more about how you can protect your company assets with pre-employment background checks