Career Employment Strategies

Friday, June 29, 2007

The limits of instant background checks

The ability to digitize information gave us the advantage of easy storage and
retrieval of massive amounts of data. The advent of the World Wide Web gave us a
way to share data while ignoring physical location. This complicates hiring
procedures. Although an instant background check can be done, the
quality is not always to be proud of or relied upon. But since an online instant
background check is the easiest and fastest to perform, it is now
standard practice among professionals and companies out to hire new blood.



The advantages should be first laid out, before working through or around the
pitfalls of an instant background check. It piles up information
to help an employer or a company to reach a more or less informed decision on
whether to hire or ignore an applicant. Since complete information on anything
cannot be had at any single time, decisions are sometimes made based on instant
background checks alone, if only to race up a project in mind, or
to fill in the ranks vacated by employees pirated or those who walked away.



Search engines will automatically abound with links to online articles, blog,
news items, photos, videos and so on about any name you punch in. Problems are
when the names double and lead to false info, such as aliases and forum names;
or when the info are grossly not updated. The links could be dead, the contact
numbers and persons those from another age. These are some problems with an
instant background search.



Offsetting these problems are the various servers and numerous website that
provide quality instant background searches. Some of them are free. The
better ones are not. These websites often have state of the art software that
"compose" for you a profile of the person you want checked, from identity
verification, criminal record sheet, driving history, credit reports,
verification of licenses, educational background, and who the references
listed on the resume are. One wonders about one's privacy these days.



These online investigative firms usually charge for a reasonable fee, and when
requested, info that are more accessible to on-foot investigation rather than
on-line ones can be acquired. So the best starting point, still, are the paid
online instant background checks, not the easy one you can do with
a search engine during a coffee break

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