Background check over onboarding helps any recruitment manager derive conviction in respect to the character of a candidate with new talent being put to offer towards a vacated position. Checking a background needn’t be solely undertaken at recruitment and may well take place at the levels of promotions that can even fall prior to, or even post, hirings being effected. It is critical for a business and its HR personnel to make out the difference between pre-employment and post-employment background checks and when and why each should be utilized.

What Is a Pre-Employment Background Check?

As the name suggests, pre-employment background checks are carried out before hiring a worker. This is to check whether a candidate’s credentials, work experience, crime history, and personal details given during the recruitment process are valid and correct. This tries to ensure that an individual is apt for employment and won’t be able to pose any threat to the business in whatsoever manner.

Why should you use a Pre-Employment Background Check?

Pre-employment background screening reduces the various risks that may be associated with a company’s employment process. Among the reasons you shall consider conducting, it includes assurance of integrity by candidates with qualification and experience, a clean record which shall match with their application, and also reduce the risk in your workplace to hire individuals who would conduct fraudulent activities, among other crimes at the workplace.

What Is a Post-Employment Background Check?

Unlike pre-employment checks, post-employment background checks occur after hiring has taken place. Many times, efforts to perform post-employment background checks are usually in pursuit of achieving compliance with the existing employees in accordance with your business’s code requirements for both legal and safety reasons.

Less pervasive and not as comprehensive, another important element of employment screening is that post-employment checks also have a role to play in workforce security and integrity.

What is a post-employment background check?

The post-employment background screening varies widely according to the nature of the job and organization policy. The common elements include: Periodic Criminal Record Check: On occasions, employers in high-security or safety-sensitive industry jobs may check on employees’ criminal records to determine whether legal problems can affect performance in the job.

Ongoing Credit Checks: Some of the financial positions, including those dealing with accounts and financial officers, may have to undergo periodic credit checks for good financial integrity.

Drug and Alcohol Testing: Can be random or scheduled post-employment in some posts, especially those relating to safety concerns.

Why does one need post-employment screening?

Though it is less relevant, a post-employment background check still plays a significant role due to certain reasons such as:

Industry Compliance:

Generally, industries related to finance or health may require periodic background checks in order to retain industry certification and standards.

Company Asset Protection:

This allows them, during post-employment background checks, to learn about some of the traits or changes that a working person undergoes in life, which may reflect potential impacts on trustworthiness and riskiness with regard to company assets.

Workplace Safety:

Extended background checks can reveal those employees who have, since most likely the date of hire, become involved with crime or life risk factors harmful to workplace continued safety.

Which to Choose: Pre-Employment or Post-Employment?

Whichever one contemplates, whether pre- or post-employment background checks, it is quite dependent on the job at hand, the industry in question, and just what exactly one aims to attain. Instances where each serves best are highlighted for each below.

Pre-Employment Background Checks

High-risk positions include situations where the position involves sensitive company information, dealings in finance, or working among vulnerable groups; a pre-employment background check is what one should do.

New Employees: Anytime one hires, it would be great if one made sure the new worker meets the standards of security, integrity, and professionalism that your company deserves.

Compliance-driven: These would include industries in the healthcare, financial, and education sectors because these industries most definitely have very extensive pre-employment background checking to satisfy not only industry regulations but also protection considerations. In high-security jobs, periodic post-employment checks are done regularly because law enforcement, government, and defense expect their workers to be above suspicion to retain eligibility for that work.

Key Takeaways: Pre-Employment vs. Post-Employment Background Checks

In effect, though both the pre and post-employment checks are basically different, their role is determinative in understanding whether your workforce can remain appropriate, safe, and secure. Essentially, in pre-employment checks, this would mean confidently knowing that the particular candidate you hire proves to be suitable for employment with your enterprise. This would further protect the enterprise in proving that its current employees too were remaining within its requirements and had over time continuously proved to be worthy of your trust.

Knowing when and for what purpose to apply will make a lot of difference to any business or HR person. Set pre- and post-employment verification checks within an overall hiring and risk management program, and one gets a safe, compliant, and trusted workforce.