Whether you are considering a new hire, a new tenant, or vetting volunteers, a criminal background check can help you determine whether an applicant is truly a good fit for your needs. If you think that finding a criminal record and understanding someone’s past mistakes is as easy as a search engine entry, however, you may be in for a surprise. Getting relevant, accurate information requires effort, diligence, and access to the right resources. wave Screenings has all of that and more, and we are here to help you learn what you need to know about every potential candidate.
If a criminal background check isn’t as simple as searching for someone’s name, then you may be wondering what is involved. In today’s blog post, we walk you through the process of inquiry and investigation to give you an inside look at what Wave Screenings does on your behalf. When you’re ready to take the next step in vetting your most recent applicant, call us, and we’ll help you get started!
IDENTIFY
Receive The Applicant’s Information
First, the applicant signs an authorization for a criminal background check. This gives Wave Screenings legal permission to conduct a criminal record check on behalf of your company, and the paperwork often includes the information we need to start our search, including the candidate’s name and social security number. As an employer, you may also want to request a form of identification, as this can help us if any of the information on the form is incorrect or outdated.
Trigger An SSN Trace
Criminal background checks often start with an SSN trace, which is a trace run on the candidate’s social security number. This searches gather more information about the candidate’s address history and identity. This is an important step that can help us confirm the identifying information we have on the candidate, as well as start to sketch out their history.
SEARCH
The next step of a criminal background check is doing a broad search for records relating to your candidate. Our researchers team will identify the applicant’s address history and any contact they may have had with law enforcement. This can help us narrow down the search area if we need to further investigate any red flags. Criminal records, for example, are often sorted by county.
Look For Criminal Activity
In most cases, a search for someone’s criminal record will begin in the county in which they live and work. From there, background check services like Wave Screenings can expand their criteria to search through state, nationwide, and federal criminal records using the candidate’s social security number or other credentials. In this step, we will look for any mention of your applicant in places like sex offender databases and terrorist watchlists. While it’s important to know if your candidate appears in any kind of criminal database, that listing may not provide the full story, and your screening service should dive deeper to ensure that you get relevant, accurate, and complete information.
Confirm Our Findings
We will look for more information on potential criminal records pertaining to your applicant. This can include a myriad of tasks, such as confirming that the person named in a certain incident is indeed your candidate and learning whether or not they are considered guilty of a crime. We may not always be able to legally report what we find, but we’ll work hard to make sure that not only do you receive the answers you need to know to make an informed decision about your applicant, but also that the data you receive is accurate.
No responses yet