What is a Third Party Background Check?

As the name implies, a third-party background check is executing a potential employees’ background verification by a background check company. The HR of the firm you’re applying to outsources a background check company to verify the information on your resume. It’s a type of employee background check.

This article focuses on the process of a third-party background check, its duration, and why it can be delayed.

What is the Process All About?

Sometimes, a background check is carried out by the human resource department, but there are often instances when your employer hires a firm that specializes in employees’ background verification. They prefer outsourcing for this task because it’s more convenient for them. Also, many organizations don’t have the time, expertise, or resources to carry out a thorough background check on their recruits.

Background verification usually involves the confirmation of information that’s usually a public record. For instance, details like the employees’ educational history and criminal records are public records. This is not something that certain categories of people can only access.

Employers usually handle the background verification process internally if all the details to be verified are public records and easily accessible to anyone who knows where to look. When companies compare their results with the social media profiles of prospective hires and other details on the internet for correlation, they usually don’t see the need to outsource the task to a background check company anymore.

Nonetheless, a holistic background verification goes beyond looking online for specific details on your prospective employees. You can’t just stop at a Google search or check in with the local county courthouse.

There should be certain checks and searches on details such as the employees’ criminal history in the areas or localities they’ve lived into employment history, tax records, and their educational details.

It takes a certain level of expertise to get the right contacts and information records for all the details to be verified about an employee. It can be grueling work that can be a hassle for the human resource department, and the time spent on background verification can prevent them from committing to other tasks in the department.

This is where third-party background checks take up the mantle. They save you the stress of verifying your prospective employees. The human resource department can focus on other things while the third-party background checks establish the credibility of your employee.

Third-party background checkers have the expertise and resources that are most times beyond the organization recruiting new staff. Employers recognize this, and that’s why they hire third-party background checks to do the job. They are more or less private detectives. They have specific processes, techniques, policies, and an organizational infrastructure to execute a holistic background check.

They are equipped to complete the background verification process with less time spent than an amateur background checker who will likely rely on the internet for every result they can get. Amateurs can even verify an employee’s residential address on Google maps, forgetting that Google maps only show you an address but not who resides there.

Third-party background checkers are also equipped with verification tools such as USOneSearch. The average employer may not know about this. It’s a background check tool with a supermassive database containing over half a billion criminal records all across the States.

How long does it take for a Third Party Background Verification Process?

The process can take as long as a month in some cases. There are many things to check, and each detail is thoroughly verified to establish the honesty or credibility of the prospective recruit. The verification process period varies across different organizations.

Factors that can influence the duration include the employees’ details the company is interested in vetting, the amount of time and resources dedicated to the verification process, and the need for the results.

There are instances where the background verification period can be as short as a couple of days. It should be noted that the duration of a background verification process is not entirely in the hands of the employer. Two days is on the extreme end of a quick background verification process, while one month is on the extreme end of a lengthy background verification process. At an average rate, the period usually spans three days to one week.

Reasons Why a Third Party Background Check can Take Longer

The following reasons explain why some background checks can take longer than the usual period. They include:

Record Verification Delays

Most times, third-party verification processes experience some delays because they thoroughly vet and re-confirm the details rather than adopting a relaxing approach to the process.

The educational details are checked by visiting the institutions where the prospective employee enrolled and checking the school records. In some cases, the school records are not fully digital. Some schools can also delay providing such details as they are not under any time constraint or specifically instructed by an authority to provide records.

For the employment history, lengthy calls can be made to the HR department to establish the authenticity of the employee’s previous occupation (previous salary, position, competence, reasons for leaving).

Specific third-party background checkers can even visit in person for these inquiries to ensure they are confirming these details from the right person and not an impersonator. The holistic approach adopted to verifying employee details can be a significant reason the process takes longer than expected.

For instance, the Integrity Center reports can take up to 2 days to release a driving license or criminal report.

Records Review

Third-party background checks can also be delayed due to confusion of names of identities. The same combination of names is bound to appear on very large databases, with some having up to over 100 results on a particular name. Also, searches are carried out on name variants as well. This is common if the prospective employee has a very common name. The records are usually reviewed and double-checked to ensure that they have gotten the right identity.

Conclusion

This article talks about the third-party background check process, what it is, how long it takes, and the reasons it can take longer.

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