Difficulties Verifying Past Employment 5 Mar 2018

Did you know that employment credentials verification is the most difficult part of a pre-employment background check? It’s true. Past employment is notoriously hard to verify. That’s because there are so many variables involved. Here’s why.

Companies Change Names

Small or large, companies are legal entities and sometimes they merge, get acquired, rebrand themselves, or change their names for myriad other reasons. How are you supposed to verify the employment of a candidate who lists ABC Consulting as the company name that he or she worked for years ago, not knowing it has since been acquired by DEF Consulting and changed offices?

Companies Go Out of Business

If your candidate is looking for a job because his or her former company went out of business, there’s nobody to verify your candidate worked there when it was open.

Staff Turnover

Even if the company is still up and running, there’s no guarantee anyone who worked with your candidate will still be there. You may be able to get basic verification of employment, but not much else. Also, especially if companies merge, positions may be duplicated, and the people who worked with your candidate let go. The new HR department in the newly merged company may not have accurate records going back to when the two companies were separate entities.

Not All Employers Keep Digital Records

This is especially true if the employment was far in the past or if the employer is a very small business. And if your reference doesn’t remember the employee and has to dig through years of paperwork to find documentation, it can be time consuming, if not impossible, to find the information.

Yet, verifying a candidate’s employment and skills is a vital part of hiring the right person for the job. How can you overcome these difficulties?

Get Accurate, Solid Information from the Candidate

Ask the candidate to provide names, phone numbers, W-2 forms, and other solid information to speed up the verification process.

Outsource the Background Check

At Trusted Employees, background checks are what we do. Leave this important and difficult part of the hiring process to us, and you can concentrate on making sure you get the right person for the job.