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Real Estate
The Guide to Real Estate Background Checks
The real estate industry is one that virtually every person will interact with at some point in their lifetime. Whether renting an apartment, shopping for a house with the help of a real estate agent or purchasing property, you will find yourself exploring the unique world of real estate and the professionals who make that industry run.
For many reasons, ranging from the high-value nature of most real estate to the ethical missteps that led to the Great Recession, this industry tends to be bound by the concept of trust but verify. Said another way, you can put your trust in a real estate agent, a tenant, or a buyer, but finding ways to verify that trust can save you from costly mistakes. No strategy is more central to the trust-but-verify philosophy of the real estate world than conducting real estate background checks.
What exactly are real estate background checks, you may ask? In truth, there is no one concise answer to that question. Instead, real estate background checks can vary in shape and form depending on the application at hand.
For instance, the term “real estate background checks” is often used to describe the vetting protocols employers or prospective clients use to ensure that real estate agents and other professionals working in the real estate industry are safe and trustworthy. Real estate agents have unique responsibilities that allow them to enter customers’ homes, drive their clients from one showing to another, and share one-on-one meetings in empty houses. Agents often have keys or access codes to the homes of clients or sellers. A great deal of trust is needed to give a person you don’t know any of these privileges. The companies that employ real estate professionals and the clients who work with them need to know these professionals won’t abuse their position. As a result, real estate background checks tend to be highly in-depth for real estate professionals.
However, not all real estate background screenings are directed at realtors or other industry professionals. On the contrary, another equally common real estate background check is aimed at tenants or renters. Landlords who own property but rent it out to specific tenants want to ensure they place their real estate assets in good hands. As such, tenant background checks are an everyday part of many leases or rental agreements.
At backgroundchecks.com, we pride ourselves on offering a dynamic range of background check services that clients can use to build sound vetting processes for their businesses. We work with numerous clients that do business in the real estate industry and can provide background check solutions that are effective for vetting agents, employees, investors, buyers, renters, tenants, and anyone else who might need to be screened for real estate purposes.
What is a Real Estate Background Check?
Whether it’s a background check of a real estate professional or a screening aimed at determining the trustworthiness of a prospective tenant, a real estate background check will typically consider various factors, including criminal history, sex offender registry listings, aliases, address histories, and more. (To learn why landlords run these types of checks on their tenants, read our blog, Top 5 Reasons to Perform Tenant Screening.) Read on to learn more about the different background screenings that make up the typical real estate background check.
Criminal background checks
Why do landlords run criminal background checks on prospective tenants, and should they? These questions are frequently bandied about in conversations about housing access and criminal justice reform. One argument is that criminal background checks for tenants create substantial housing challenges for the formerly incarcerated. Advocates for criminal justice reform ask questions like, “How are ex-offenders supposed to rejoin and make positive contributions to society if they are denied housing based on past mistakes and misdeeds?” Denying a leasing application based on a criminal conviction, these advocates argue, only makes it more difficult for past offenders to rebuild their lives, in turn exacerbating problems with homelessness, recidivism, and mass incarceration.
Simultaneously, there are reasons why a landlord would wish to know about a prospective tenant’s past criminal activity. For instance, someone previously convicted of murder, assault, or rape, may pose a risk to the landlord, other tenants, or neighbors. Alternatively, a person whose record shows convictions for manufacturing meth may pose risks to the physical property.
Ultimately, landlords should use their best judgment when using criminal history checks for housing decisions. Crimes of violence, sexual assault or property damage may indicate bigger risks or liabilities than the landlord is willing to accept. Other less severe offenses, meanwhile, may be less expressly relevant to housing decisions.
Criminal background checks also hold considerable value for prospective real estate professionals. Real estate agents spend a good deal of one-on-one time with buyers, have access to sellers’ homes, and will often be a go-between for paperwork containing sensitive personal or financial information. For all these reasons, it’s vital for real estate agencies to make sure they hire trustworthy, safe people, and criminal background checks can be a significant part of that process.
At backgroundchecks.com, we offer criminal background checks at the county, state, and federal levels, as well as a multi-jurisdictional search that spans 650 million records from across the nation.
Sex offender registry searches
Sex offender registry checks are another vital consideration for landlords. While most sex offenses will show up on a criminal background check, many of those crimes only require perpetrators to register as sex offenders for a specified number of years.
Meanwhile, a person on a sex offender list should stand out as a bigger liability to a landlord than someone who committed a sex crime 40 years ago and is no longer required to register as a sex offender. Specifically, there are laws around how close to schools sex offenders may live, and registered sex offenders are broadly considered to be at a higher risk than many convicted criminals. For all these reasons and more, landlords will often use sex offender registry checks to inform their leasing decisions.
Employers in most sectors will incorporate sex offender registry checks into their background screening policies. Real estate firms are no exception to this rule. Running sex offender registry checks can help ensure the safety of buyers, sellers or other agents who will need to interact with the real estate professionals you choose to hire.
Alias and address history checks
Alias and address history checks are valuable for their ability to add extra information and contexts around criminal background checks. Criminal history searches are often conducted on a name-based search model. This model means that a person can sometimes avoid detection in a criminal background check by lying about their name.
Similarly, background checks are often geographically-based since most criminal records are filed at the county level. A landlord who only runs criminal history searches in one county or state can risk overlooking convictions that a prospective tenant has from a different geographic area.
At backgroundchecks.com, we can incorporate aliases and address history checks into our criminal background checks. While a person can adopt an alias or relocate to a new area, their real name will still be linked to their Social Security Number, as will their address history. We can provide this information to our customers and use it to expand background checks to include other names, counties, or states.
The value of alias and address history checks is the same for real estate professionals and tenants. Just as landlords can expand the reach of their background checks with this extra information, so too can employers get a better sense of their potential hires.
License/certification verifications
While the checks we’ve covered have value for both sides of the real estate world – tenants and real estate professionals – the license verification part of the process is only necessary for real estate agents. Prospective tenants don’t need any specific license or certification to be eligible for most housing. However, real estate professionals must be licensed to work in the profession.
Different states have different rules and processes for real estate agent licensing. In most cases, agents will have to complete an educational process and pass an examination to prove they are knowledgeable enough about the job to be qualified. Real estate employers should take care to verify the credentials of each agent they hire to avoid problems with competency or any liability that may result from unqualified, unprofessional performance.
Employment verifications
Regarding verifying employment, landlords are primarily concerned with current employment. The typical landlord wants to know that a tenant is stably employed before granting them a lease, as stable employment helps minimize the chances of late or missed payments. Some landlords conduct a formal background check to verify employment, while others merely ask for a recent pay stub or other proof of income.
Meanwhile, real estate agencies may verify employment history to check a candidate’s past jobs in the real estate field. Hiring an experienced and successful real estate agent is a boon for any agency. Verifying employment and sales volumes at past agencies and other on-the-job statistics can be essential to the vetting process.
Reference checks
Reference checks can be a part of both real estate background checks. When vetting tenants, landlords may want to hear about their experience with a tenant from previous landlords. Speaking with a previous landlord about payment reliability, property care, noise, manners, and other key tidbits can be the difference between leasing a house or apartment to a problem tenant and avoiding that situation entirely.
For real estate agencies, meanwhile, reference checks can help to hire managers to learn more about a prospective hire’s character, work ethic, demeanor with clients, and more. This information can be as important to a people-centric industry like real estate as any educational credentials or work history details.
Driving history checks
Some real estate agencies may conduct driving history checks on their agents simply because real estate agents drive their clients to showings. Ensuring an agent has a driver’s license in good standing and doesn’t have a history of reckless driving, driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or other dangerous behavior is an important way to keep clients safe in these situations.
Driving history checks are irrelevant to tenant background checks and should not be included in that process.
Best Practices for Tenant Screening
Are you a new landlord putting together an effective tenant background screening policy or a long-time landlord revising your tenant background checks? In either case, consider the four tips below as your best practices for smart tenant screening.
Familiarize yourself with all laws and regulations
The most critical thing to remember with tenant background checks is that you don’t have free reign. There is considerable debate about the ethics of tenant screening, including whether landlords should even be allowed to consider the criminal history and other background information during the tenant application process. In jurisdictions such as Seattle and Detroit, ordinances now restrict which background checks landlords can run on prospective tenants.
As a landlord, you need to familiarize yourself with all relevant legislation. Every landlord or potential landlord should be aware of the tenant background checks controversy and how the debate around tenant background checks is shifting the legal landscape around them. For instance, while tenant background screening may be legal in your area now, that doesn’t mean it always will be. If you need to find and vet a new tenant in six months or a year, you should plan to review the latest legislative happenings again. Because of this fair housing debate, it’s possible that what was once allowed in your state or jurisdiction is now banned or restricted.
While the biggest factors here are restrictions and outright bans on tenant background check strategies, also remember that landlords must abide by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when vetting potential tenants. The FCRA is a federal law dating back to 1970, which outlines the protocols you must follow when conducting any tenant background screening.
Plan a compliant and relevant background check
Once you know what you’re legally permitted to do with your tenant background checks, you can begin the next step: crafting a tenant screening policy that is detailed, relevant, and fully compliant. If you’re wondering what to include in a tenant background check, the question of relevance is typically the biggest determining factor. Regarding relevance, you want to focus on categories such as criminal history, credit history, employment, identity and address history, and rental history. Other background checks, including driving and education background checks, are irrelevant to housing situations, and landlords would be wise to skip them.
It is also wise to take proactive steps toward eliminating bias in tenant background checks. One of the biggest criticisms of tenant vetting policies – and one of the top reasons that landlords in some parts of the country have been restricted in running background checks on tenants – is the worry of bias and discrimination. Sometimes, background checks and other screening policies (such as rental applications) can be designed to introduce or reinforce housing biases. Policies that create intentional or unintentional biases against any group – whether families with young kids or People of Color – can lead to costly lawsuits.
Look beyond the credit report
For many tenant background screenings, landlords emphasize the financial situations of would-be renters. Simply put, the top consideration for the average landlord is ensuring they are getting a tenant who can make full and timely payments every month. As a result, while they typically include criminal history searches of some variety, tenant background checks will often focus just as much on factors that might indicate a tenant’s ability to pay.
Specifically, landlords want to know if their tenants are employed, where they are employed, their income, whether a former landlord has evicted them, and if they’ve generally made payments on time throughout their credit history. At backgroundchecks.com, we offer screening services to verify employment and check a tenant’s credit history.
While employment, income, and credit history can undoubtedly speak to a tenant’s likelihood to make rent payments consistently and on time, landlords should avoid putting too much weight on the credit report.
Bad credit can result from many factors, from student loan debt to unexpected medical expenses. Sometimes, landlords are overeager to read any credit report that shows considerable debt or a few late credit card payments as a red flag. Just because a person doesn’t have perfect credit or a totally stable financial situation doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t financially responsible, and it shouldn’t mean they aren’t allowed fair housing opportunities.
Too often, dire financial straits result from unforeseen circumstances, some of which happen to people through no fault of their own. Take, for instance, the Covid-19 pandemic, during which many people lost their jobs and found themselves in difficult financial situations. No one could have predicted those events, and avoiding them was equally impossible. Such is the case for many people, for many diverse reasons, and landlords should be sensitive to those struggles. The bottom line, landlords should try to avoid penalizing prospective tenants for past financial mistakes or unavoidable periods of economic struggle.
A better option might be speaking with past landlords and other references to understand a tenant’s character and reliability. These personality traits often contribute more to “good tenant” behavior than spotless credit.
Don’t overlook spouses and partners
When couples apply for housing together, one member often does most of the paperwork and interfacing with the landlord. In these situations, remember that you’re considering two tenants. Running a background check on only one of the prospective tenants leads to the risk of overlooking a red flag in the other person’s background. Vetting the two tenants identically will give you the information you need to make a smart leasing decision.
Background Screening FAQs
Read on for answers to many of the most frequently asked questions about vetting employees with help from background screening companies.
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When screening new tenants, criminal history, sex offender status, credit history, income, and past evictions are the five things landlords will most typically want to know about when screening new tenants. However, note that landlords in some parts of the country may be restricted in their ability to run background checks in one or more of these categories. Understanding the laws and ordinances in your area is essential to ensure compliant tenant background checks.
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A mix of criminal background checks, sex offender registry checks, reference checks, credit history checks, civil court checks, and employment verifications can give you all the information in the five categories mentioned above. Landlords use a cross-section of checks to get the clearest portrait possible of who a prospective renter is and how responsible they would be as a tenant.
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The term “real estate background check” can refer to two things. In one context, a real estate background check is the screening landlords use to vet prospective tenants. In another, it can be the pre-employment background check that a real estate agency uses when hiring a real estate agent. These checks often focus on many overlapping aspects, including criminal history and employment background.
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One question frequently discussed in the real estate world is whether tenant background checks will always be allowed. Some locales, such as Seattle, Washington and Oakland, California, have prohibited landlords from running criminal background checks on tenants. The idea is to reduce barriers to housing wherever possible to end rampant poverty, criminal recidivism, and other social problems. However, these bans place landlords in a challenging position by giving them less awareness and control over whom they let into their property. Currently, proposed tenant background check bans are far from the norm, but all landlords should pay attention to legislative trends in the coming years. Local, state and even federal governments could continue to restrict landlords’ use of background information in the future.
Additional Resources
Bankruptcy Could Impact Your Future Career Options
Most people know that if they file for a bankruptcy that it will remain on their credit record for about seven years, but many do not realize that during those seven years, potential employees may see it and be swayed by financial problems. Many employers are looking for easy ways to thin their enormous piles of applications. They do this by requiring background checks, and now days, they’ve added credit checks too. Although technically, they are not allowed to deny someone employment because of a bankruptcy, they can for certain positions factor in bad credit to deny employment. While a bankruptcy may have saved you financially, it will wreak havoc on your credit score and employers with some companies will be checking it. If you have a credit score that is below average, they may see you as a below average hire or worse, someone with the potential to commit crimes against them due to financial hardship.
Although the job you’re applying for may not be one in the financial industry, that doesn’t mean the employer won’t want to be allowed to run a credit check on you before hiring. Statistics show that “employees with debts are among the most likely to steal from their employers.” With crime on the rise in the recent economy, many companies aren’t willing to take this risk and consequently, are implementing credit checks along with background checks within their hiring processes. If you have a bankruptcy on your record, it’s important to consider being upfront about it and tell your prospective employer about it. When they let you know that you’ll need to pass a background check that includes a credit check, that’s the time to let them know what they’ll be seeing and to explain yourself. It’s a good idea to have a lot of both employer and personal recommendations to show that despite your bad credit, you are an upstanding citizen who works hard at what they do. You simply might have to limit your job searches to companies who will not require credit checks. There are still enough out there who have not yet adopted this extra policy.
Companies who want to perform background checks and credit checks on their potential employees often work with organizations like backgroundchecks.com to get access to national databases like US OneSEARCH and credit reports. Although these kinds of checks don’t prove that a potential employee will or will not commit a crime, they can give employers insight and, according to statistics, a pretty good idea of potential issues that could arise should they hire employees with problematic pasts. This is why it’s so important for people wanting good paying jobs to not only be hard workers, but also good upstanding citizens who pay their bills on time and refrain from committing crimes.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) and cofounder of the Expungement Clearinghouse - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
backgroundchecks.com Legislation and Compliance Update: Maryland House and Senate Pass Law Prohibiting Employers from Requesting Social Media Passwords
The Maryland House and Senate have passed, and the Governor is expected to sign, a bill prohibiting employers from requesting log-in information for an employee’s or applicant’s personal online accounts. This includes social media log-in information.
Additionally, the bill prohibits employers from
taking, or threatening to take, disciplinary actions for an employee's refusal to provide such information; and
failing to hire an applicant for refusing to provide such information
Employers are still allowed to require employees disclose the necessary information for accessing a non-personal account or service that provides access to the employer’s internal computer or information systems. Furthermore, employers can conduct investigations based on personal accounts if they are trying to abide by securities or financial laws or regulatory requirements or if the employer is looking into unauthorized downloading of proprietary or financial information to a given website or web-based account.
Many other states have similar bills proposed and even more are expected to propose similar bills soon. For more details on the Maryland bills, please click here for the House Bill and here for the Senate Bill.
Screening Agencies Remind Businesses to Check Their Summer Hires
When summer comes around, many young adults seek employment to fill their summers and save money for college that will start up again in the fall. This leads to a huge amount of applications being processed by companies who hire extra workers during the summer season. Because most of these jobs are temporary and because they have so many applications to process, businesses tend to slacken their vetting processes, which isn’t necessarily a good idea. Although it can save them time during the hiring process, it can also stick their business with less than reputable young employees who could tarnish their reputation or even commit crimes against them. Is this rush to hire temporary workers really worth the risk? Screening agencies like backgroundchecks.com are saying no and are listing some very compelling reasons.
In a 2011 report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 22 million people applied for summer work in the youth demographic alone. This year, because unemployment is still high, that number is likely to climb, which should give businesses their choice of the best possible employees. If they aren’t using thorough screening processes though, they may not be getting the kind of employee they thought they hired. Even volunteer positions increase during the summer, as people look for experience or a positive outlet to spend their free time. Just because these people aren’t being paid for their work, doesn’t mean the organization they are working through isn’t liable for their though. This is even more so true when it comes to business like summer camps who have employees and volunteers who work with children. Each individual who will have contact with a child should be thoroughly background checked in order to prevent any potential negligent hiring suits should there be any suspicious activity. These suits can end up costing businesses millions and tarnish their reputation.
They can save themselves a lot of hassle by making sure they know as much as possible about the people they are hiring or putting to work in both their volunteer and paid forces. Although a background check can’t prevent crime, it can give employers insight into patterns of in their potential hires. When they use an organization like backgroundchecks.com, they can find out about past convictions from any state by looking at information from national databases like US OneSEARCH. If their employees or volunteers will be driving on the job, backgroundchecks.com can check their driving record to make sure they are safe, responsible drivers. Companies will also have the ability to get information from reference checks and education verification to make sure résumés actually match the past of their new hires. Backgroundchecks.com can create custom packages to meet summer budgets and can get information from many of their databases instantly, which will help companies speed up their summer hiring processes without decreasing their standards. When it comes to the reputation of a company, this kind of extra checking is certainly worth it.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about ’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
backgroundchecks.com Compliance and Legislation update: Alabama governor signs bill amending controversial immigration law
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley has signed House Bill 658, a bill that is intended to simplify and clarify Alabama’s existing immigration law.
The revised version is intended to address various aspects of the original law, including provisions disliked by the business community. In announcing the signing, Bentley contended that the law “reduces burdens on businesses while still holding them accountable to hire legal workers.” Bentley had previously indicated that he might veto the bill because it did not do enough to change the original law.
Under the law, any contractor or subcontractor that does business with the state is barred from employing undocumented workers and must use the federal E-Verify system to ensure that all workers have the legal right to work in the United States. Contractors that knowingly hire undocumented workers will be found in violation of the law and will lose the contract. In addition, a court can then subject the employer to a three-year probationary period, during which time the employer must file quarterly reports with the state’s Department of Industrial Relations for each new employee hired.
Repeat violators may face a five-year probationary period, the loss of the contract, and the suspension of their business license, in addition to being required to terminate the employment of all undocumented workers. A third violation can result in the permanent loss of the business license.
Ice Cream Truck Drivers are Background Checked
A child from Wheeler Elementary School in Millard, California claimed that an ice cream truck driver from Frosty Treats was giving out ice cream in exchange for children’s addresses. This caused quite an uproar and had parents calling in to the company with complaints and inquiries. The driver who was accused was said to be devastated, as they had been working in that community for years and was one of their top sellers. Luckily, the accusation turned out to be a misunderstanding. Parents were still shaken though and demanded to know more about the drivers in their community.
Ice cream truck drivers have access to children and are normally trusted individuals that symbolize happy childhood summers. No parents had previously thought to question their trustworthiness until now. Millard parents wanted to make sure that the employees who roamed their streets in search of their children were safe. A manager from Frosty Treats assured parents and the media, that their drivers are safe. All drivers working for them must have a driver’s license, a clean driving record, and a clean background report. Anybody who applies for a job there goes through a background check before becoming a Frosty Treats driver. They must also go through their safety training program. Parents are happy to hear this news and plan to continue to support the company in the future. Nobody is saying who made up the accusations and for what reason, but the company is glad it turned out to be false. They have enjoyed serving their treats to their community for several years, and will surely be glad to continue doing so.
Whenever company employees have special ties or access to kids, it’s important to know that their employees can be trusted. That’s why kid-related businesses tend to partner with organizations like backgroundchecks.com who can give them instant access to millions of criminal records to find out how trustworthy their employees really are. By using backgroundchecks.com, companies like Frosty Treats can take a look at driving records to make sure their drivers will be competent on the roads. They can also check criminal records from any state with databases like US OneSEARCH and US Offender OneSEARCH. With so many children running after ice cream trucks this summer, those businesses can’t afford not to hire the best, most trusted drivers possible.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) and cofounder of the Expungement Clearinghouse - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
Crossing Guards Will Be Subject to Background Checks
In an effort to keep their kids safe, the Lyndhurst township in New Jersey is creating a new ordinance that would require crossing guards to have background checks before being hired or reappointed. Crossing guards there are already required to give notice of any criminal convictions, but there were no procedures in place to confirm whether or not their records were clean. The township also plans to stop the accrual of sick days and the clothing allowances crossing guards previously enjoyed. They decided to review their current position after budget concerns became an issue and before state mandates force them to make similar changes. And Mayor Richard Dilascio says it’s simply, “a safety issue.”
Crossing guards there are required to be moral and upstanding citizens of New Jersey that do not have any criminal convictions showing moral turpitude. The background checks will be just one more step to confirm that their guards are actually held to the high standards they have set. With 37 different crossing guards having daily access to kids, Traffic Officer Nick Coviello believes it’s an obvious move, saying, "The reason is they are working with children. It's common sense to me."
The ordinance will prevent those with criminal histories “involving danger to a person, against family, children or incompetents…arson, burglary, theft, controlled dangerous substances offenses and operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, offenses against public administration, perjury and other falsification in official matters, obstructing governmental operations, misconduct in office and/or abuse of office.” These are all crimes the township has defined as involving moral turpitude. Any current crossing guards who are found to have any of these offenses on their record will not be reinstated in the coming year.
This employment process of verifying information provided by applicant is getting more and more common these days. Any organization who employs people who will work with children might want to consider following in New Jersey’s footsteps. They can partner with backgroundchecks.com, which would give them access to multi-jurisdictional database searches covering over 355 million records from over 600 sources. This information comes from national databases like US OneSEARCH, which checks records in all 50 states, and US AliasSEARCH, which even checks records under alternate names. When it comes to the safety of our children, we really can’t be too careful, and submitting employees to background checks is just one more way to keep our children safe.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) and cofounder of the Expungement Clearinghouse - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
Dayton Making One Hundred Percent of City Positions Background Check Required
Instead of waiting for changes to state or federal laws, Dayton, Ohio is taking a more blanketed approach to their hiring practices now. Although they are only required to have about 70% of their city employees background checked before hiring, they have decided to make all positions require that level of vetting. They are hoping this will alleviate concerns regarding fairness when to it comes to their policy on hiring felons. No potential employee will be hired if they have a felony conviction on their record. As of now, there are three positions which have not been background checked. These positions include the waste collector, administrative typists, and a mechanic. Once their new policy is officially in effect, these two will be held to the same scrutiny as all other positions.
Nonprofit agencies are asking for a different policy change though. They would like to see felons get a fair shot at city jobs. In fact, PowerNet and LEAD, two agencies concerned with justice in hiring, especially when it comes to former convicts, would like all potential hires to get through the first round of interviews without even having to check the felon box. This way, if they make it to the next round after they’ve proven they are qualified for the position, only then would their criminal history come in to question. Of course, the city’s current policy on not hiring ex-felons would then have to be changed to allow certain people to be hired if their felony is not related to the position they apply for.
Maurice Evans, secretary and chief examiner for the Civil Service, said they do not know how many ex-felons currently work for the city. He is sure that there are none working in the departments of police, fire, law, airport, water, and sewer though, because those positions have always included background checks. Many companies are upping their background check requirements due to the rise in crime and the potential negligent hiring suits they might incur if a crime is committed by a previous offender on their watch and while on company business. This is causing nonprofit agencies like LEAD though to speak out on behalf of criminals who they feel have paid their dues. The EEOC is also weighing in the matter. Whatever policies and laws change in the future, currently, it is more than acceptable for organizations to hire companies like backgroundchecks.com to carry out checks on potential hires. This gives them access to products like US OneSEARCH and US AliasSEARCH enabling them to find out if their applicants have criminal convictions on their records.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
