As an owner or manager of a company, you hire leaders to help you steer your business towards success. You will need people with integrity and the gift of vision. These are individuals who are proactive, can consistently recognize opportunities, overcome obstacles and risks and take their teams into action.
Executives and people occupying high profile positions in your company can be a gem who help to make your business shine, or mud that spoils the look and value of your company. It really depends on who you promote or hire for the position. It’s precisely the reason why you need to implement pre-employment screening solutions in your recruitment system. This helps to ascertain the background, leadership, management experience, technical skills and character of your candidates.
Unfortunately, many recruiters commit hiring mistakes by foregoing background checks. Many of them do this to minimize on-boarding costs or speed up their hiring process, especially if there is an urgent need to fill a vacuum left by an outgoing leader or manager.
Executive Intelligence – Is it Necessary?
Your executives represent your company’s brand not only to your customers but to shareholders, employees and perhaps media. They also gain access to most of your company’s most valuable and sensitive assets: financial records, personnel information, and business plans. Any employee granted with such sensitive data and visibility must be trusted completely. For this reason background screening for high profile positions should be considered essential.
A good pre employment background screening program should include:
- Identity Verification – SSN
- Criminal history check
- Sex offender check
- Drug testing
- Reference checks
- Credit Check
Skipping pre-employment screening for executives especially if your company is struggling with backlogs and a mounting sense of urgency to fill a strategic post can be tempting. The candidate may have even been referred by another executive or a board member, but don’t fall into this trap. No matter the pressures and stress of looking for an immediate replacement, you must remember how important this screening is. This could save you valuable time, money and many costly and unwanted problems later on.
The Risks of Skipping Background Checks
Sometimes the costs of conducting executive background checks, especially if you outsource the job to a specialized company may seem high. But you must remember however, that there are towering costs associated with not conducting this important process.
As a business owner or manager, you understand very well that recruiting and finally hiring an executive is expensive and may be time consuming. If after six months, you realize that the manager you hired isn’t able to deliver on your expectations, you would may have already spent over $300,000 on the person’s wages, training, and subsequent firing and replacement costs. If you compare this amount to the cost of conducting background checks, the cost for screening no long seems prohibitive does it?
Lies and Embellishments in the Resume or CV
Another hiring loophole that you can avoid with pre-employment screening is false declarations on resumes. Results of a study conducted by a leading recruitment agency in the United States found that 85% of employers discovered false statements on job applicants’ resumes. If you are one of these, then you may be employing people who are not exactly who they say they are in their application or resume documents.
You must avoid hiring people who write falsehoods on their resumes. If they can lie to you at this stage, they’ll probably do it again when they get employed, and the results could be far worse. As much as possible, you must ascertain your candidates’ identity and qualifications by implementing a proven pre-employment screening solution in your hiring process.
Make your hiring more efficient, cost-effective and compliant. Work with Edge Information Management for seamless and accredited professional pre-employment screening services. We can help you hire the most qualified applicants, reduce your hiring risks, and ensure the integrity of your brand with the right business leaders.
Call us at (800) 725-3343.
