Stating the obvious: Employers can not access your background check information without your written approval.
Employers want to make sure they hire the best candidate for a specific job opening and for their company/organization. And so, employers will ask for your permission to do a background, credit, and/or education check.
Hiring managers have to verify the information you submitted–such as employment history and education–during the hiring process is accurate . Most companies either don’t accept online degrees and won’t hire that candidate; however, there is a small percentage that will consider hiring a people with online degrees.
Employers–with your permission–will do a reference and background check if they plan to hire you in order to assure themselves that you are not a threat to the company. The background check may demonstrate to an employer that you may have gotten into trouble in college, but have a clean record now. On the other hand, it can demonstrate a history of reckless behavior. It is up to the employer to determine the time span they are evaluating. For example, company ABC doesn’t care about anything you did seven or eight years ago, whereas XZY care about everything in your history.
Non-traditional methods of screening candidates is through social networking pages. Facebook is where most people get caught and may be the deal breaker for recruiters and hiring managers. It is less professional than LinkedIn, and is visible to potential employees. In our Labor Day blog post we included an image that shows you where to go to change your privacy settings.
As a reminder to job seekers every where… be honest with the recruiter or hiring manager in charge of processing your information. They may ask you ahead of time about your past, so there aren’t any surprises.
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