Employment Verifications: Background screening lynchpin or obsolete policy?

Employment verification has been a cornerstone of background screening for decades, and I should know. I’ve been around this business for literal decades. We dutifully call previous companies to confirm dates of employment, job titles, reason for leaving, eligibility for rehire, the whole nine.

Before we get too, deep I do want to come clean that in some instances, employment verifications are important. But not in every case. It could be worth re-thinking standard policies to save time and money.

1. Many employers give us only dates of employment and position held. Which can be useful, if that information is correct. There are many times when information, particularly the position, is not correct in the records. Particularly when we use third party verifiers like The WorkNumber, Thomas & Co., etc. Not necessarily their fault, it comes down—pardon me—garbage in garbage out.
2. Considering those third-party verifiers, determine if the information is worth the expense. Costs for these services range between $50-$100+. Do you need to know that your applicant worked atWalmart in college six years ago? Consider the job for which they are applying, and what information you will likely gain from these searches at their exorbitant cost.
3. When you cull together the information from an applicant’s employment history, does it give you actionable information? Or is it just checking a box?
4. The traditional model of employment verification was built for a world of long-term, full-time employment with established companies. This model doesn’t account for folks in the gig economy, freelancers and other non-traditional career paths that are increasingly common in today’s market.

What’s replacing employment verification?

1. Reference checking. References are a gold mine, and applicants can give contacts from companies that make sense to review, rather than the scattershot of gathering dates and titles from employers that have no bearing on the position offered.
2. Social Media searches, while not a replacement per se for employment verification, provide in depth looks into applicants.

Personally, I advocate that employment verifications be retained, but with some thought given to what is truly needed. If you’re hiring a bank teller, verify their employment history with other banks. If you’re hiring a bank teller, you may not need to verify their employment as a sandwich artist at Subway.

“Okay, Ann, great advice but I need an all-or-nothing policy.”

I get that. Call me or email me, I have a couple great ideas on how to make this work. Or grab some time on my calendar. https://calendly.com/cuttingedgebackground/30min

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