Name: Build a Background Screening Process You Can Defend
Uploaded: 2026-08-25T18:00:44.404Z
Duration: 30 min 4 s
Description: Build a Background Screening Process You Can Defend

Transcript for "Build a Background Screening Process You Can Defend": Hello, everyone. Welcome to our live, background screening session. My name is Tanya Jeter. I'm the director of strategic sales here over at FutureCheck on the background screening side. I've been in the screening industry for ten years and, currently serve on the public access committee, for the Professional Background Screening Association. Sabrina? Yes. Hi, everyone. I'm Sabrina. I'm the product manager for, MetroTech background screening. I work closely with our clients, operations, and compliance teams to make sure that we are continuously making a background check experience better. I've been in the screening industry for eight years now. I'm really excited to answer all your questions. Alright. So today's agenda, we are oh, this is fun. Yeah. We're just set talk about the state of background screening. Lots going on. Two truths and a lie, and then live live q and a. So with that said, wow. There's a lot going on. You know, compared to last year, compliance I mean, really, we've been heading this way for a while, but, you know, the idea around comp compliance being focused mainly mainly on federal requirements, and seeing, you know, the increased scrutiny from from federal to state to local as we start to to get more complicated as we go along. And we're seeing that with with the laws that have been taking shape and taking place, you know, with the Washington Fair Fair Chance Act expansion, started in July, you know, Los Angeles County Fair. Oh my gosh. We know the Fair Chance Ordinance for Los Angeles. If any of you are dealing with that, you've already been dealing with that since 02/2024. And then we also are getting really into AI as well and, you know, with Colorado's automated decision making technology act, we're gonna see a lot more of that, and that goes into effect in January 2027. So just, a lot of change on the horizon and continues to to move towards, fair chance hiring and and all the decisions around that. Alright. Let's play two truths and a lie. Sabrina, you wanna you wanna jump in? These are these are your questions here. Of course. Let me read it out for you. So two truths and a lie. Not every criminal record found during a background check can automatically be used to disqualify a candidate. Two, some background checks can take longer simply because certain records still require manual courthouse research. Three, a standard background background check searches one comprehensive national database containing every criminal record in The US. Let's see who gets the lie correct. Give it a couple minutes here. Couple seconds. Yep. So you're voting for the lie. Alright. Okay. I think we can call it now. That's correct. 85% of you are correct. The standard check searches, one comprehensive national database containing every criminal worker in The US. So really big common misconception mostly from applicants. Of course, you guys are on screen in in the HR industry. So, you know, there's several different databases where, you know, criminal searches and employment searches and all of this fun stuff comes from. So there's never just one single source. Alright. I guess we can move into our q and a, Tanya. Yeah. So, I'm not seeing the questions yet. Just go ahead and drop some questions in. So. what are go ahead. Alright. We could go for Yeah. I was just gonna read the question. What are some of the biggest misconceptions. employers have about background screening? There's so many. I think we kick it off with the live, probably. One is that there's just one, you know, magic database where we can just run an SSN and get all the information that we need on a candidate, to get anything. Screening involves a lot of, you know, jurisdictions and and sources and permissions and and compliance that impacts what can be reported and where to report from. So I think that's one of the biggest ones. The other one, I think, it's that you can search for whatever you want and also adverse on whatever you want. Right? Yeah. I would say another misconception too is that you need to run the same background check on all of your employees. It has to be the same package. I see that I mean, that's a lot of times people are like, yeah. We wanna be consistent. So we run, you know, we run the same thing on everybody. But the reality is is each job has, you know, different responsibilities, you know, depending on the level of what this person's gonna be doing in your organization, can really dictate, you know, what should be included in a background check. You know, there is precedence for, you know, for example, if people go if you hire someone who's gonna be going in people's homes, there's precedence to run employment verifications for those roles. So, you know, yes, it's it's you wanna be consistent for that role and running for that position, running the same package, but it doesn't necessarily mean the same background package for everyone in your organization. I think that's probably, with Fair Chance hiring and everything that's going on, one of the most common misconceptions, that I see. Right. I see. Okay. Go ahead. Yeah. So we have one here. If 80% of our employees are high school students, We do through a DOS minor hiring approvals, but how do background check work for minors? It's a great question. So, for minors, you're definitely going to need a parent or guardian consent, before you run it. I think one of the highlights for background check minors, though, is that, you know, a lot of the searches are based on, you know, SSN, trace, address, history, where a minor has been, so on and so forth. So there's probably not gonna be a lot of history around where they lived and where they went, to begin with, but the process remains virtually the same. I don't think there's once you have consent, there's nothing. And, Tanya, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there's any search that's necessarily, like, banned from being run on a minor, as long as we have consent just. not gonna pull up anything unless they were tried as an adult. Right? So, yeah, there's just not a lot of information you can pull. And, And know, you purchase to have changes as well. yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I understand why I run background checks. I mean, you have 17 year olds. You have 18 year olds. But, yeah, there's just not a lot of information that's that's usually available for that age group, and definitely it requires consent. And I I would expand that even to drug testing. You know, if they go to go take a drug test, it's it's a good idea to have, a parent with them to because some some locations will require that they get give consent at the location as well. Correct. So do you recommend every company have a standard adjudication matrix as it pertains to the preemployment process for decision making? Yes. I do. I think I think, it is a best practice, especially in today's, you know, market to to understand, you know, why your background screening, what you're looking for, you know, what you care about and what you don't care about. You know, if you're if you if you have a strict policy that you don't wanna, you know, look at anything over seven years, then you can work with your background screening company to not report anything over seven years. You know? That's an example. So really understanding, you know, what those requirements are. And then, also, like, having, you know, the people that are gonna be making these adjudication decisions, having that be a smaller group of people, that continuously receive training, you know, on an biannual, annual basis and continue to review those matrix matrixes is also really, I think, a really good idea. So it should just make it makes it a lot more fair for applicants too. So you it it really helps you lean to EEOC and all the good stuff I would wanna stay aware of. I have a question here. We're we've got international employees who come to The US. How does the background check works from them? Do we only search in The US? That depends entirely on on you and the packages that you choose. Usually, you can partner with your screening provider, and they will have either their own or a partner in international screening. Of course, I will I will say it. I will highlight that different countries have different standards of how they keep records and how how easy it is to access those records. Right? There are countries, say, for example, I'm from Honduras. Central America is really difficult to go get something. Everything's very manual. It's in person. It's a lot of printed, wet signatures and whatnot. So how fast you're going to get those results depends on the the country that your employee is coming from. But it you know, that kinda depends on you, on what you want to run on your employee. Then another one, can a candidate attend a paid training while a background check is pending? And that that also falls under your I mean, what your rules are. I think a lot of companies will hire, you know, with the understanding and start people with the understanding that the background check will dictate, you know, for their employment. So, you know, if you need someone to attend a training and that's part of your process, then, yeah, you can absolutely do that. And and I would say ninety nine ninety nine percent of cases. Right? So, you know, if you're in health care, for example, I don't you know, there there could be some instances there, Yeah. and rules that would be specific to what you're hiring for. Great. How does an employer protect themselves if something is missed in a background check and an incident occurs that may have been prevented? We have over 80% minors working for us and require background checks for all 18 and up new employees. It's a really good question. I think it's it's a when you're building your background check package, it's really important to keep in mind if the people that you're hiring, is working not only with but around vulnerable, populations, minors included in that. So leaning into you know, if you have a lot of minors, you're probably gonna wanna run sex offender searches. Your gut if you, you know, if you have, them working with adults or kids, probably want to run abuse search. I think the biggest thing is to make sure that you, like, you made all, reasonable, decisions at the time of running a background check if there are things that can't be reported. Say, for example, if somebody had something that happened seven years ago and you, you know, they were convicted for a murder or whatever, and if the state where you're running this just doesn't allow you to report something that was passed seven years ago, you're kinda covered by it even if it didn't come up in the check and you couldn't make a decision based on it because that's the state law for screening agencies to not report TED information. Yeah. And and for, like, background screening, you know, it it's you're not gonna get a 100% reporting from any background screening company. There will be hits. It it it happens everywhere. You know, for for, credit reporting agencies, it's about having reasonable procedures in place and being able to show that you follow all those reasonable procedures and have you know, if something happens, how you handle it. And, like, for example, you know, all of us have to work with vendors to to go into court houses in some cases. You know, about 80% of The United States, we can plug into electronically, but the other 20% is manual. And anytime you bring in a human into the process, you introduce the you know, an opportunity for an error to be made. Right? So let's say somebody you know, the clerk is supposed to pull the results, and the clerk misses something. Right? They they accidentally miss a file. That is going to happen. So the the point is, like, well, what you know, if if the screening company then finds out that something was missed, what are the procedures to go back in and look, and and and research that? So same same thing goes for your organization. You show that you ran the background check. You did you know, you were consistent in your procedures. You know, you would report it to the screening company. The screening company would then do their background, their research, rerun that report. And so I'm just saying, like, across the board, there there are procedures in place and and stuff that's that's happened. Do you wanna read the next question? Rita. Hi. I wanted to inquire about noncriminal education employment checks. Do we need to send free adverse notice letters to an employee before resign rescinding the offer from the company? If it's on the background screening report, anything that is on the background screening report that is influenced from your adverse decision, you must follow the adverse action process if you're using a credit reporting agency. So, yes, you would and and the way that I look at the adverse action process, it's really important to understand that mistakes can be made. And this is this is to protect the employee or the prospect and give them an opportunity to say this is incorrect. This shouldn't be here. I have proof that this isn't me. Right? And you really wanna give everyone that benefit of a doubt. Because what if you passed on someone because it said they didn't have that education, and then it turns out that they did. Right? Like, you just don't wanna do that. So, yeah, the first step is, you know, to send and send that, pre adverse action letter. And then after the adverse action goes out, then? you would resend the the offer. How is AI changing background screening, or where do you think it will have the biggest impact? Wow. I I can't so many AI conversations. That's a tough one, and it's also very multilayered. Yeah. I would yeah. Go ahead. well, I was just gonna say, I think, like, one of the biggest things that I feel like half, a lot of people want in order to get results faster, but also the other half is incredibly, you know, nervous for and will and that's the reason why it probably won't happen is leaning into, like, deterministic AI. When we're gonna let AI make a decision or let AI score, a background check and may you know, make a decision on that, that's probably never going to happen. It's already leaning into that. I think, you know and and on the tech side of it, I think it's going to probably help improve the candidate experience, your experience with, you know, how you are able to use and consume the data that's coming from the report, how much info you how you can understand it better, how you can make better informed decisions, and in the way that we automate your workflows. Right? Like, how is your ATS system talking to our system so that you can do everything you need to do on one side, of of the spectrum without having to log in into different different spaces. Multiple system. Yeah. Like, the agentic talking to each other to to. to to surface that information. Yeah. Yeah. And I also think too, like, just, like, a lot of organizations that are using AI, it it it really takes those tasks that would take so much longer to pull a report, to analyze a report. Right? And it's able to do to help background screening companies as well just, like, be more efficient in how we we process information and how internal processes. But we always are gonna be very careful when introducing AI, in in a way that could be dangerous. Like, we're like, especially us, we are extremely conservative. You know, we're like, for example, if you use our adjudication, the way that our adjudicate automated adjudication works is we're going to show you, stuff that you would adverse on because we're never gonna click that button for you. Right? Instead, we're going to automate the things that you don't care about seeing so that you're not sitting there looking at traffic tickets or things that you're not that that don't pertain to that role, which I think really leads to the next question is, you know, is it a bad practice to initiate a pre adverse for every criminal record reported through the third party agency if the company does not have an established background adjudication matrix? I yeah. I mean, I would say that if if you are advercing on every criminal record reported, that's your education matrix right there. You're saying I will adjudicate on every criminal record reported. Something to keep in mind too is that you want to keep in mind things that are, like, irrelevant to to the job. that they're out there. The the amount of things that we see on our side, it's like, oh, there's a misdemeanor because you had a crawfish out of season somewhere in Louisiana. Right? And that's a real misdemeanor that somebody could have and bring up in the background check. Right? So, you know, unless you're probably working with a crawfish population, I probably would say that's not irrelevant to the job that the, candidate is doing. So I think I would I would say, like, keeping those things in mind is important, but that is your matrix. If you're advercing on all of them, that's. your matrix. And we're always just gonna lean in and say it's smart to have an idea of why you're screening and what you're you're going to adverse on. Like, it is smart to do that, but most employers don't have that. The employers that do are the ones that are right now doing New York, California. Right? No. Areas that it's required. Those are the places that people now are starting to to fill out these, assessment forms, and then they're seeing the value of these assessment forms and how they can protect you, and they're starting to do it in places that it's not required. So, yeah, there's there's a lot that can go into being thoughtful about background screening and stuff that you can put in place that that does protect you more. But, certainly, most most companies aren't there. So and don't have an adjudication matrix. So looking at each item and they're saying, okay. Well and I I think it's smart. You know? Like, one of my favorite examples is someone who an 18 year old an 18 year old who flashes a car full of of women, right, and then gets on the sex offender registry. Ten years later, it's like, you know, that was ten years ago. So would you hire that person or not? So, yeah, I think it's good to to look at everything and, to review it. Right? To to review it. helps to remove bias from it as well. Like, you know, with with criminal records specifically, I feel like there's also so many, like, personal emotion involved in them. So if you have an education matrix in that's established by your company, it also removes that bias element from however big or small your HR or the team that's making that decision, is doing. It helps them. It helps you helps the applicant. Yeah. And so they're asking, you know, if we are sending the offer from our company, do we need to send a pre adverse action letter to an employee if there is an education and employment hits? Is it mandatory to send the pre adverse action letter, or shall we leave it at is? I definitely always send the pre I would send the pre adverse because, once again, what if what if that education or employment is incorrect? What if it's on, like, another person who has a sim the same name and the same birth date, but it's actually not that person. Right? So think of the pre adverse action letter as a way for you to be fair, Yeah. and give that person the ability to say that this is incorrect. So, yeah, always send that. especially for employment, something that it's really important to highlight is that there isn't, like, a mandated unless it's DOT employment, history, it's not a mandate. It's not a law that an employer has to provide this or what, lie like, lines and matrixes they have to follow to keep this information. So it can always happen that somebody's telling you something out of their memory, that somebody, you know, lost the record, that they used to keep it in paper, they switched systems, and they didn't move that information over. So it's important especially if you're making a decision like this. Right? Look at if you really care about how off the dates are, how exact do they have to be, how exact is the title. We see it often where companies will just, like, standardize a job title as in, like, specialist one, but then the person the job offer said, you know, product manager one. But if it's just a product management company, it could have been specialist one, and that's how they're standardizing their, their title. So it's important to give that benefit out of the doubt to applicants so that they can, you know, let you know if it's something's wrong or not. Oh, another question here. Is it better to have the candidate submit their information directly to our third party background check vendor or to sign off that they agree to a background check and have our HR team submit the information? That's a really good. question. I like that one. I I like it. I think oh, Tanya. I don't know if we're gonna agree on this one, but this, so I'm like, we might disagree. on it. Yeah. I can take it. I think it's definitely better to have them submit the information through third party background check. I think during the candidate experience, they are able to get a sense of what will be ran and what are we looking at. Like, if there's employment history, we're asking asking for that. Is there there's self disclosure, we're asking for that, and candidates will a 100% be more helpful when we call them if we need something else and lean into providing you the info that they, that we need to complete it if they know what we're looking at, as a as opposed to when they don't know what you're looking for and what's going on. Yeah. But, And? there's also rules around, like, when you, like, you know the main thing is you don't wanna ask that information when they're filling out a job application or applying to the job. Right? So there's this, like, you know, when you get the authorization, it's really important, for the employer to to know that. But, ultimately, the authorization does fall under the employer. It is your responsibility to get it. And background screening companies, what we're doing is we are providing a service to you, and we're making it easier, and we're we're handling that. And we're also taking on a lot of that compliance. Right? So, for example, if you're hiring someone in California, we're gonna show different, even San Francisco. We're gonna show different, I mean, authorization disclosures than we would, for someone in Colorado. And, you know, you having to keep up with all of that is a lot of work, and, it's definitely nice to have the screening company do it. So, it is up to you. Definitely up to you. But, you know, we we lean towards having it having us help you with that. Yeah. So question here, Tanya. Going back to the previous pre adverse question. Let's say, for example, a candidate does not show or failed to follow instructions for a drug screening, and it is reported on the background check as unperformable. Although there is no real result due to a candidate not completing the exam, should a pre adverse be initiated for this example as well? Yeah. I mean, it is a requirement of yours. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Sabrina. No. No. Yeah. I was gonna say, you know, you are you can adverse, on something that is a requirement, especially on something that is a compliance requirement if it's in your industry. Like, if you're in health care and this is simply really a has to happen on your side, you can definitely adverse on that. Do you need to do a pre adverse specifically for a drug screening? It depends on what you're using, I feel like, Tanya. Yeah. If it's on the report that was unperformable and they didn't come, you know, I would still send the pre pre adverse action letters. Because guess what? What if the background screening company what if they did go take that test? And the lab lost the results or forgot to report that they came in. Right? Like, that happens. And so the person can be like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I I was there. I did that. So it was performable. So definitely still do the adverse on on that. And, absolutely, you can have a rule. Like, they you're saying as part of your employment, we require that you take a a drug test. This is standard practice. This is what you need to pass. They have to do it. I also would say too, like, having a policy around negative dilute, negative dial like, I had a company once call me, and they're like, honey, what do we do? We just got our second negative dilute. Do we have them go a third time? Well, if you have a policy in place and you know that you only give them one chance to have a negative dilute, it makes it a lot easier to say, no. Sorry. You can't, you know, you you had two in a row. The first. one we gave you, the second one we're not. Right? But really leaning to what you were saying about, like, a human error before. Right? It can happen in employment when somebody's telling you something from a memory. It can happen in drug screening, especially because, Example. on on the drug screening side, these are all networks of clinics of individual clinics. So you are you know, you don't know if it's a, you know, a clinic that's, you know, super strict in their standards or may maybe not. Where is it located? Is it far away? We see so many lost in transits. But, anyways, we're gonna wrap it up. Brent go ahead. Sorry. Sorry. We we have a minute left, and we will get in so much trouble if we don't do our polls. We will. We're happy to answer questions offline. We love this stuff. But if you're interested in learning more about background screening, you know, even if you just wanna talk about these questions, let us know, and we'll reach out to you and and follow-up. And I think there was a was there another poll question too? Yep. Nope. Yep. Just thanks for joining. That's. We really appreciate you taking time to join us today. This has been a I I had a lot of. fun. What about you, of fun. Sabrina? Totally. I love to do this. We should do this more often. Pretty sure. marketing's always on deck. We do a lot of webinars, and it takes a lot of prep too. And this one, Yeah. we just had to show up and that and marketing, you know, was kind to help us out and and do do all the work, and they're just fabulous. So really appreciate all that they do and appreciate that you guys came and joined us today. You know, Thanks so know you guys are busy, so thanks for sharing your time with us. And and and and, Shona? Thank you, guys. See you later.