Tricky But Necessary – Why IT Hiring Managers Must Do Background Checks
It might be hard to believe, but more than 65 million Americans who are looking for work have criminal records. Of course, not all offenses can or should prevent someone from being hired for a job, and in fact, federal rules about discriminating against applicants with a record have recently been tightened. But certain crimes and jobs just don’t mix. Here’s why IT hiring managers must perform background checks, and what to look for.
Protecting Company Assets – IT employees have access to a literal wealth of valuable company property, such as expensive computers, mobile devices and other technology goodies. Even more worrisome is their access to sensitive data and closely guarded trade secrets. Data integrity is an enormous concern, and such precious information could easily be sold to the highest bidder if an employee with history of drug or financial offenses saw it as a good source of funding. Not only can such a breach ruin reputations, but organizations could also be on the hook for fines if they had confidentiality agreements with any customers that mandated penalties for leakage.
Ensuring Hiring Integrity – Some people really will go to any lengths to get a job. The last thing you want is to hire someone who has done some serious resume embellishment and won’t be able to actually perform the work he or she was hired to do. Even if a background check doesn’t reveal criminal activity, the information it uncovers can still help verify resume claims. For example, if a job applicant lists a position with Microsoft’s main office, but has no past residences in that area, some deeper digging should be done.
Avoiding Workplace Liability – Employers are responsible for maintaining a safe working environment, so think twice about hiring a candidate whose background check reveals sexual harassment, stalking or anger problems such as assault. Even if you don’t have an office, you could be held responsible for anything the employee does while on site at a client’s workplace.
Like anything else, background checks are merely a tool, and an imperfect one at that. Mistaken identity is a common problem, as many people have similar names or birthdates, and computers are only as accurate as the person entering the data. Be sure, too, that you have familiarized yourself with the tougher guidelines recently issued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) before using background checks as part of your hiring process. However, the tightened rules apply only to offenses that are unrelated to the position being applied for, and since most IT jobs require working with people, valuable equipment and confidential data, the range of disqualifying charges could be quite large.
If you’re searching for reliable, top-notch IT professionals, turn to the technology employment experts at Triumph Services. Our candidates are carefully vetted for both skills and background, so you can hire with complete confidence. Contact us today to learn more!
