Verification of Employment History

This usually provides a confirmation from the prior employer of the applicant’s dates of employment and position held, usually the last position. It is also customary to the get the name and position of the person at that employer verifying the information. As with any type of “verification”, an employment history verification entails verifying information provided by the applicant on her/his resume or job application.

The verification of employment history can be expanded to include interviews with the applicant’s former managers, peers or supervisors at that company. This is done to try and get a better understanding of the applicant’s skills, training, time management, disciplinary actions, character, work habits and the like.

The interview questions can be tailored to provide more relevant information based on the industry or the individuals specialization.

Important Note:

The prior employer may have a policy disallowing the release of some information, such as salary or eligibility for rehire. Others may have a policy that allows them to confirm information but not correct any erroneous information provided. Still others will require a signed release before they will reply, which is not a problem unless they go so far as to require an original signature (wet signature) or require a special release form of their own, which adds delays to the process. The good news is that these demanding former employers are rare. Inasmuch as your employee screening company is at the mercy of the former employer’s human resources department, timely responses cannot be guaranteed and multiple calls or faxes maybe required. Ultimately, some employers may never respond and there is nothing that can be done.

About third parties

Many employers have outsourced the employment verification process to third parties. Anyone contacting the employer directly will be referred to the third party provider. These third parties charge a fee to verify information, usually in the range of $10 ~ $20 per applicant and these fees are passed on to you. Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid them. A further complication is that salary information may only be provided by these third party firms with the help of the applicant. The applicant may have to go to the third party’s website, login and authenticate some information in order for it to be released to us; a complicated but unavoidable process to say the least. As a substitute, some prospective employers ask to see the applicant’s W-2 to help expedite the process.

What we require from you/your applicant to conduct the employment verification:

• Name at time of employment
• Dates of Employment
• Job Title
• Name of Prior Employer
• Name of Department / Position / Supervisor

It also helps if the applicant can provide a valid telephone number. Eliminating the search on our end for the right telephone number can be a great time saver.

At BackGroundCheckCentral.com we want to provide verifications that yield the exact information you wish to collect.

Accordingly, please feel free to provide us with customized questions. Unfortunately there is a limit to what can be asked without changing the nature of the background check. Once we are asked to stop verifying things and ask for additional information not provided by the applicant, the report changes form and becomes what is known as an Investigative Consumer Report, which is a special type of background check that has additional governmental regulation over it. (think of this as the difference between verifying something and getting a reference) All Investigative Consumer Reports are governed by FCRA 606 and several states have additional laws governing how information in an ICR can be collected and reported. If you feel that an expanded interview is beneficial to your hiring practices, please contact one of our representatives for details about this special service.