Hiring new employees for your company can sometimes be a long and drawn out process, but it’s this way for a reason. One important component of hiring potential new employees is to have them go through background screening checks. Professional background checks can be provided by third party employment verification services, and are often a make or break component of any application. This article looks at three reasons why it’s very important to screen potential employees with professional background checks.

• Verifies the Applicant’s Resume Information: One important reason to screen applicants with professional background checks is that they can be used to verify the information on an applicant’s resume. While one would hope the applicant would be honest about their prior work history, the truth is that over 50 percent of applications will contain inaccuracies about educational background and previous employment. And a vast majority of applicants will falsify at least one fact on their resume. Background checks can help prevent companies from hiring applicants who have padded their resumes with false information.
• Checks For Criminal History: To be fair, simply being arrested doesn’t mean you can’t be hired per se. However, professional background checks can look into an applicant’s criminal history (if any) and see if they’ve been arrested for committing felonies or gone to jail for other violent crimes. This is especially important if the applicant is applying for a job that would give them access to firearms. Some crimes make applicants unable to be hired for certain positions and background checks can help prevent them from being hired.
• Checks for Drug Use: In the cases of some background checks, a drug test might be employed to make sure the applicant isn’t using any illegal drugs. People who abuse illegal substances have a higher chance of being involved in workplace accidents and more likely to come to work late or have their work performance suffer because of their addiction. Background checks that include drug tests can identify applicants who are using illegal drugs and eliminate them from contention for the position they’re applying for.

In conclusion, there are several reasons companies should screen potential employees with professional background checks. These include verifying the applicant’s resume information, checking for any criminal history, and in some cases, also includes checking for illegal drug use with a drug test. This last point is less common, but can still come up in certain jobs. These are all important reasons to screen job applicants with a background check and make sure you’re hiring the best candidate possible for the job.