After investing some time to conduct round of tests and interviews, you finally find potential candidates to fill vacant positions in your company. With astounding resumes and convincing performance during the interview, there should be nothing to hold you back from hiring them. The only step you have to do now is preparing the offer letter, right? Well, not that fast.

Bringing in new people to your company nework is an important decision. To avoid getting bad hires in your team, you should perform a thorough background screening. A survey conducted by Careerbuilder presents shocking facts that 49 percent hiring managers reported to have caught candidates lying in their resumes.

Among the most common false information is 38 percent embellished responsibilities and 18 percent fake skill sets. These kind of discrepancies are harmful for the company. If your new hire turns out to be unable to meet your expectation, this will bring destructive effects to the company’s sustainability in the long run.

To prevent such worst-case scenarios, here are batckground screening trends and practices in 2017:

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Gig economy

Today, people appreciate working flexibility more than ever before. Rather than being tied to one company, people are now choosing to become independent workers who work part time right from their homes.

If you are interested to hire freelancers, you must not overlook the background screening processes. Although they might be only temporary workers, you still need to make sure that they have a good and credible track record.

It becomes more vital when the contract employees gain access to critical and sensitive data related to confidential business’ information. This is done solely to ensure your company’s security and ensure that they are really productive.

Candidate experience

The interaction between candidates and company is increasingly significant in the screening process. To make them engaged with the company even when they have yet to be a part of the team, hiring managers need to take advantage of the advancements in technology. For example, you can use video call, interactive email, mobile chatting application, ATS and CRM systems. With this personalised approach, it will be easier to conduct appropriate background screening processes.

Drug testing

In most parts of Southeast Asia, drug use is illegal so both the user and the supplier will receive severe punishments. You do not want your company’s credibility and reputation tarnished if it turns out, that your new employee is a drug-addict.

Therefore, you should request for drug testing before asking potential candidates to sign on the contract letter. Illegal substance abuse is not only harmful to company’s integrity in the business world, but also influences the level of efficiency and productivity.

Social media

In this growingly digitalised world, you really can find everything on social media. From employee’s previous employers to their favourite hobbies, people share personal information on the social account. And you can use it as an effective tool for background screening to dig deeper about their profiles.

Nevertheless, it should be remembered that there are boundaries you need to pay attention, so that you do not end up violating their privacy.

Conducting background screening on prospective employees is one of the most crucial processes in recruitment. This is an important element to ensure that your hires have valid credentials and reliability.

Despite their flawless resumes and appealing performance during the interview, the employer needs to be careful to not to just go by their words or believe what they see. Therefore, background screening is a must-do process to help HR leaders ensure that their chosen candidate is the best choice for their company.

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