AccuSourceHR, Inc.
For many employers, identity checks is a crucial part of the hiring process. Whether it’s to protect company assets, legal liability, workplace culture, or any number of other elements, screening the candidates you plan on hiring is often absolutely necessary. You want to make sure the person you’re hiring is exactly who they say they are, after all.
However, it does not come without unique risks and complications that can all vary based on profession, location or a host of other factors. Below, we walk you through your options when verifying the identity of who you’re hiring, and show you the right way to execute your screenings.
Play By The Rules – All Of Them
The Fair Credit Reporting Act dictates that anyone you’re screening needs to not only be aware of that in advance, but needs to agree to it. It also dictates that a candidate can challenge the results. This is the first and most crucial guideline to follow before checking anyone’s identity. There are also a number of guidelines by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that need to be followed, along with varying state and local laws. In other words – be very, very careful.
While only screening candidates who agree to be screened is simple enough logic, the rest can get tricky. It’s important to have a dedicated legal expert on hand to advise you of everything you can and can’t do before jumping straight into an identity verification. In an effort to protect your assets, you might actually risk losing a few.
When you work with AccuSourceHR, our team stays on top of every rule and regulation, and can tell you exactly what’s in-bounds, and what’s not currently recommended. Any way that you get it, however, make sure you have the proper compliance information before diving in, and certainly before denying employment to someone based on what their identity check finds. It may sound like a big hassle before you’ve even done anything, but the consequences of skipping this step are a guaranteed bigger hassle.
Remote Control
With compliance precautions properly handled, it’s time to move on to the actual process of verification. In the traditional hiring model, a hiring manager would need to physically process a candidate’s ID in order to get started, but a new way of working necessitates new innovations.
With AccuSourceHR's SwiftID verification tool, you can accomplish all of this remotely, which is especially helpful these days, as more and more jobs are also being transferred into work-from-home models. SwiftID instantly detects whether an ID is real or fake, all from the comfort of a mobile app.
It also works hand-in-hand with SwiftHire, our mobile background check tool that gives you all the power of our automated systems within the palm of your hand. With SwiftID and SwiftHire working together, you can verify a candidate’s identity within seconds, no matter where you are. The software confirms that your new hire’s name and date of birth matches their records, and that the same person you’re running a background check on is the person whose ID you’ve just scanned. As a bonus, it also cuts down on loads of paperwork that can bog down any HR department.
The Process Behind The Process
No matter how you verify your candidate’s identity, it’s important to understand what’s being checked, and of course, why. With millions of Americans a year falling victim to identity theft, questioning the validity of any new hire’s name and credentials is more than a practical concern. Whatever system you wind up using, make sure it’s one that maximizes all legal and available knowledge-based authentication methods.
This means possibly going as deep as checking credit reports, address history, DMV records, or private banking information. It’s not enough to simply have the correct social security number for a candidate – you need as much of the picture as possible in order to rule out identity theft. Obviously, this gets into sensitive territory with any new hire, but that’s why consent and following the proper legal framework are a vital start to the process.
Identity Checks: To Wrap Up
As the work landscape continues to drift towards remote-friendly models, identity checks of anyone you’re hiring only becomes more crucial. Be up to date with all federal, state & industry-specific guidelines, and have a proper well of KBA strategies in place to screen any candidate against.
Your company is only as valuable as the people who form it, so make sure you’re trusting – and hiring – the right ones. This includes whoever you’re hiring to verify your candidates. AccuSourceHR doesn’t just boast industry-best automated systems and legal guidance, but by far the industry’s most-awarded customer service. In our hands, trust remains a constant, no matter what we find.