There are difficulties associated with getting a pay raise or fresh employement, especially now. Most industries nowadays get so many applicants that you really have to worry about competing with the others. Furthermore, many a company has various measures to make sure they get the best employees.
Companies need to know as much as they can about an applicant or an employee. They need to be assured that they are not making a mistake, investing in the wrong person or risking the future and resources of their company. That is why background checks are considered necessary.
This is legal and acceptable practice, and in fact required by law for some job positions. There are certain posts that are extremely sensitive to the characters of those filling them, after all. People in these posts have great responsibilities that require their characters to be in keeping with the demands of the job.
There are several reasons why companies need to conduct background checks. Different parties benefit from it, not just the employer. The first reason that benefits an employer is to avoid being sued by customers for employing the wrong people.
Today's clients have a lot of power. Mistreatments can become fuel for a legal fire with them. Employment background checks are therefore important to today's companies.
It can turn into quite a financial shambles to fail to deal with this early on. Such legal issues, when publicized, may also become downers for the business's performance. This may show you why companies expend so much effort on ensuring the reliability of their employees.
Then there are cases where kids are involved. The law protects children and make sure they are not abused or treated badly in any way. Positions like ones of teaching require strict background checks, therefore.
And there are more people besides the children to think about, people like the weak and the aging. They cannot protect themselves as well as some of us can. State laws require professionals handling the elderly and disabled to undergo background checks.
And finally, the most common and obvious reason why corporations do background checks is that applicants tend to lie. A lot of people tend to lie on their resumes. This is why companies find it worthwhile to look into the facts first before hiring someone.
Competition seems to be the rule in today's job market. Fortunately for corporations, they have modern tools and devices to help them study the backgrounds of their many applicants. Pre-employment screening checks are truly par for the course in industry nowadays. In some companies, they require employee background checks on their employees characters. For more information, see my latest post.