Friday, March 25, 2011

Pre-Employment Screening Companies Say My Criminal Record Search Is Better Than Your Search, Part I

I hardly ever hear about the quality of the type of criminal history search performed by hands-on researchers for pre-employment screening companies for background checks.
It is a fact that pre-employment screening companies believe the criminal record search is what differentiates them from each other.
There are a few that "sell" a platform or delivery methods of their background search but the bottom line, even for them, always stops at criminal records.
At the NAPBS and The Background Investigator's pre-employment screening conferences, at both,  an inordinate amount of time is spent of criminal records and the laws surrounding the use of them.
Not much else to talk about there.
But criminal records are what we sell, first and foremost.
And the quality of the searches?
Is this how we differentiate ourselves to our customers?
Many companies (not yours) prefer to commoditize the criminal record.
To them the time and speed of returning the result to the customer is paramount.
There is perhaps a measure of quality control whereby a 'known' record is sent to the researcher in a particular area.
The result is then compared by what the pre-employment screening company has on hand.
I have never been privy to a 100% correct sample of results from the sending of multiple county known criminal  records and I have worked for the largest background check companies in the world.

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