If you have lived a life of good sense, moderation, and restraint, you may feel like you’ve done everything right. However, regardless of that, employers like to check people’s background, often using a free criminal background check to do so. Indeed, they can simply enter your name in Google and see what comes up. This isn’t because they expect the worst. Rather, it is a routine check that employers do, simply because there is an increase of crime and violence in the workplace. Naturally, if a criminal background does appear, they may be reluctant to hire you, not in the least because this could damage their own reputation on BBB or any other review site.
How Employers Check People’s Backgrounds
There are lots of ways in which an employer can check someone’s background, both paid for and free. We live in the age of information, and the internet remembers everything. This makes it really easy to complete a check on someone. However, it is very important that employers do use the right sources, because many free background check places are actually a scam. It is imperative, therefore, that they use a reputable source, not in the least because important decisions are made based on the results.
Exactly how important the results are depends on what a prospective employer is looking for. If they use the internet to do a check, they usually only want to know a little bit of someone’s background. A full, paid for check can take many weeks to be completed and it is an expensive process for which they will receive no refund if it turns out they didn’t really need to perform the check in the first place. There are roles, however, in which more extensive checks are required by law. For instance, if someone works in finances, for the government, or with vulnerable people, a full and official background check must be completed, regardless of the cost.
Going Beyond Employment
Background checks are now a huge business and they are becoming increasingly popular. Because so much of our lives is now conducted in a virtual arena, people have also become savvier in terms of finding out whether the people they are dealing with are who they say they are. Programs such as Catfish show how common it is for people to hide or even lie about their identity. Indeed, those involved in online dating regularly use free background checks as a way to protect themselves, and it is important that they do so.
At the same time, these checks are used for things such as immigration, adoption, criminal investigations, finding out who a new neighbor or carer is, and so on. Background checks may have to be completed before someone purchases certain chemicals and firearms, for instance. What these checks do, provided they are done by a reputable organization, is provide facts on who someone is. Those facts cannot be argued with, and they are used extensively to make decisions.