Good morning folks! Today we turn from the different types of criminal history searches that backgroundchecks.com performs to education and employment verifications – two of the most common services we provide.

In addition to being two of the most common services we provide, employment and education verifications are probably also the most clear cut: In an employment verification, a backgroundchecks.com worker will attempt to verify facts including dates of employment, title and compensation. In an education verification, the worker attempts to verify facts including dates attended, GPA and highest degree earned.

Typically this happens in one of two ways: We will either pull the information from a centralized system where the institution (previous employer or school) houses it or we will use our resources to determine the appropriate number to call and we will personally call the institution to verify the information. When a backgroundchecks.com employee calls the institution, we can either utilize our standard questions to get the answers you need or we can follow a script that you provide.

So what more is there to explain? Well, like everything else in life, there are always exceptions to the rule-and it’s in these exceptions that backgroundchecks.com shows our worth. It’s a fact of life that businesses close up shop every year – and though less frequent, schools do too. When someone is claiming to have worked at a business or received a degree from a school that no longer exists, it can be difficult to verify.

When this happens, backgroundchecks.com takes extra steps to authenticate the information. For instance, when trying to verify employment at a business that no longer exists, backgroundchecks.com can access and utilize tax documents or pay stubs if the client allows. Similarly, backgroundchecks.com will take unusual steps to verify education for closed institutions, going so far as to contact the Secretary of Education or Department of Education.

County and state criminal history searches: which is important and which is indispensable?

Let’s start with county criminal history searches. Knowing what we now do about criminal history databases, many of you are probably unsure why a county criminal history is necessary. There is a reason why we recommend that US OneSEARCH be run with a county criminal history search rather than as a standalone search. As stated previously, county criminal history searches are perfect for digging deep and getting every available detail in targeted areas. Most importantly, county criminal history searches are most likely to yield felony or misdemeanor charge results.

In addition, to ensure FCRA compliance, you should always run a jurisdictional search on any item discovered in a national criminal database. (To do this automatically, select US OneVERIFY instead of US OneSEARCH when ordering searches on backgroundchecks.com.)

Next, we have state criminal history searches. Ideally, a state criminal history search will search each county within a given state to ensure that no records are found, however not every statewide Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) offers a comprehensive county reporting. The benefits are similar to county criminal history searches while sometimes offering the benefit of breadth in addition to depth, but these searches can also be affected by politics in two ways: First, when demand for searches is high, the state agencies get theirs done first and private employers have to wait – sometimes for a week or more. Second, it takes effort for information to move from the county court’s records (which are usually updated daily) to the state’s repository. The county has to extract the data and send it to the state, which has to load it and test it. When demand is high or politicians cut budgets, the state records can lag behind the county records. And, while we don’t know the reason, we sometimes find records at the county level that simply don’t exist at the state level.

Based on this, which would you say is indispensible and which would you say is just important? From our perspective, county criminal history searches are indispensible. They give the necessary depth of information in the place where convictions are most likely to appear. State criminal history searches, on the other hand, tend to be more costly and can be affected by politics, but they can offer a greater breadth to cover those people who don’t stay in the counties of a state in which they live or work. For these reasons, we categorize state criminal history searches as “merely” important.

The final type of criminal history search is a federal criminal history search. Many think this is either just another way of saying national criminal database or a search of all counties in the U.S. It is in fact something completely different. We’ll examine this last type of criminal history search next time in our question and answer blog posts.

Everyone have their answer? Then let’s go over the quiz. Hopefully none of you chose C (that’s known as stalking, folks) but I expect that many of you may have chosen A. While much closer, that’s still not the correct answer.  Instead, the most basic definition of a name and address history search is a service that uses various sources to determine recent names and addresses of the subject.

At backgroundchecks.com, we conduct a Name and Address History Search by running an individual’s Social Security Number against a national database that includes information provided by the credit header, as well as hundreds of other sources, such as public records, phone records, etc.  This report details all available names and addresses associated with the SSN. This information is then used to develop possible names and addresses not provided by the applicant.  Additional searches can then be conducted on these names and addresses.  Note that there can be discrepancies in name and address history information. If a data source mistyped a social security number, information about someone else can show up in a name and address history. This is why you should only use name and address history to lead you to other information about a person.

The benefit? Rather than just running a search on the places they claim to have lived you have the option to run a search on all places they’ve lived. Rather than just running a search on the names provided by the applicant you have the option to run a search on their aliases.  With the results of the Name and Address History search, you can conduct a more targeted county criminal history search or you can gather more data from the US OneSEARCH.

Simply put: the Name and Address History Search gives you a broader field of information to mine to keep your clients, your employees and your business safe.

Today in our journey in continuing education, we’re going to tackle backgroundchecks.com instant database search options which we consider to be the best and the brightest of national criminal databases.

Why is backgroundchecks.com national criminal convication database the best and brightest?

For a few reasons. First, our instant criminal database products have a dedicated data acquisition team—One that actively searches for and accumulates sources. Second, records are refreshed within 10 days of being received by backgroundchecks.com, increasing your compliance and your accuracy. Third, with over 400 million criminal records, over 900 million pictures and 748 sources, our database is without question one of the largest proprietary national criminal databases in the industry.

And in this case, bigger is certainly better.

A bigger database means more peace of mind for you, your company, and your clients. In truth, a bigger database means more records and more chance of finding that one record that gives you pause. That may sound like a negative, but let’s face it: you want to find those records. It’s the reason you hired us.

Our criminal conviction record database is national, but you may be wondering why you would need this when you’re running a county criminal history search as part of your pre-employment screening background check. It’s simple, really. While county criminal searches are perfect for digging deep and getting every available detail in targeted areas, they cannot return criminal conviction results from all across the country in one sweeping search. Our database does just that. In fact, by combining this powerful enhancer with a county criminal history search, hit rates are increased as much as 50%. (As a side note, please understand that we recommend this be run with a county criminal history search, not on a standalone basis!)

That’s no small factor, and it certainly helps protect you when it comes down to due diligence.

The next logical question, then, is “Why should I bother with a county criminal history search?” For now, let’s suffice to say that I promise you it is worth it, and we’ll discuss that the next time we write our question and answer blog article.