With telecommuting becoming more common and the gig economy growing steadily, hiring people remotely has become more common than ever before. For employers, there are many benefits of hiring people to work remotely. Research suggests that full-time employees think they will be more productive if they work remotely and that employers lose about $1.8 trillion dollars a year in productivity. When the employee is located in a different city or state, doing a thorough background check on them becomes even more important because you don’t get the opportunity to meet them in person.
It’s important to remember that the information you find in a background check is highly sensitive and subject to privacy protection regulations. When you use this information to hire someone, then you will also need to consider the requirements set by Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Here are some ways in which you can do a background check on pending online employees.
Online Profile Check
You can find the profiles of candidates, including their phone number and background, from an online database like Nuwber. These databases aggregate information from different sources and will provide you with a profile that contains links to contact information, neighbors and associates, and public records. If you don’t see the information in the database, then that person may have personally requested to remove it from there
Criminal Background Check
A criminal background check will give you information about any pending cases, felony and misdemeanor convictions, and incarceration information. The available criminal history will depend on the state: in some states, it’s illegal to report convictions that are older than seven years. The report will not show any convictions or detentions the person received as a juvenile; however, this will also vary from state to state.
An FBI-level background check will be more detailed than the regular criminal background check. The disclosed information will include all the information recorded by law enforcement agencies whose data is added to the FBI database. So, this background check may also show any parking tickets the candidate has received, for example. Such detailed checks are usually done on candidates if the business is working with a government agency.
Level 2 Background Check
If the job involves working with children or other vulnerable individuals, then you may need to do a level 2 black background check as well. These checks involve screening for a felony or misdemeanor convictions, pending cases, civil judgments, arrests leading to conviction, dismissals (if requested by the employer), etc.
Information that’s not part of a criminal report
Some information about the person will not show up in a criminal background check because it may be a civil matter or it may be prohibited by FCRA. For example, a restraining order against a person is a civil matter so it usually does not come up in a criminal background report. FCRA does not allow the reporting of bankruptcies in pre-employment screenings if the bankruptcy is older than 10 years. Another type of record that does not show in the criminal history is expunged convictions. This information is sealed off from public availability so it’s not available for pre-employment checks.
The information you see for your employee background checks will vary depending on the source of information. You can get a profile of the person using an online database in a matter of minutes. Whatever level of information you need, make sure that you are following the regulations set by FCRA.
