Hiring Freshers for Your Company? Don’t Forget Background Verification

Table of Content

1. Background Check for Freshers
   • Education check
   • Education reference check
   • Criminal record
   • Family and personal records
   • Skills verification
   • Over to you
      

Background Check for Freshers

Whereas companies might be conducting proper employee background verification checks when hiring experienced candidates for high profile roles, they often ignore the importance of background checks in India for freshers. The reasons for this are: companies assume there’s not much at stake when hiring freshers; as freshers are just entering the professional world, companies think there’s not enough to conduct background checks; or companies feel that conducting checks on freshers would be a waste of time, effort and money.

Ignoring employee background verification of freshers is a wrong approach for any organization, however big or small. In this blog, we’ll discuss some of the key checks that organizations should conduct when hiring freshers.

1. Education check

Candidates applying for their first jobs could share wrong information about their education. E.g. showing a degree or course as complete even when it isn’t or if in cases where it is near completion; sharing wrong information about the university or the location, are among some of the information that could be shared incorrectly by fresh graduates. Since freshers do not have any professional experience, it is important for organizations to assess their educational background properly as it is one of the few factors that would throw light on a freshers competency as part of background checks in India. A few things that should be thoroughly checked are marksheets, graduation certificates, and letters from universities and institutions. 

2. Education reference check

As freshers do not have any prior professional experience, the most important reference checks would be education reference checks - from their teachers, professors and mentors at their educational institutions and universities. employee background verification companies can help conduct education reference checks with special emphasis to details such as the candidates personality, competence, reputation and more.

3. Criminal record

Just because a candidate is a fresher does not mean they might not have had criminal records or lawsuits filed against them, and may not require pre-employment checks. It is important to conduct criminal record checks on freshers as part of background checks in India. Police and court record checks can help reveal any information that should be treated as a red flag. It can help save organizations from any legal and safety issues.

4. Family and personal record

When candidates are freshers, there’s only a few checks that can reveal information about their professional competency. Organizations have to depend on candidates’ personal information to assess their character and competency. Professional employee background verification agencies can collect candidates’ personal and family background. Background companies also use social media platforms to conduct checks - objectionable photographs, abusive comments leaning towards racism, discrimation or threat might be enough to assess candidates’ character and whether or not they are fit for a particular job or industry.

5. Skills verification

Imagine this: a fresher mentions a number of key skills in the CV, based on which, s/he gets a call for the interview. The candidate is smart enough to clear a few rounds of interview. However, when the hiring company sends the candidate’s profile for background checks, the results reveal questionable reports. The employee background verification finds the candidate’s skills vary from those taught at the institute mentioned in the CV. Upon further investigating into this discrepancy, the agency finds the candidate had shared false information in order to get a call for the interview. 

Such cases are common when hiring fresher candidates. Hence, it is important for organizations to conduct skills verification tests, too. Organizations may not be able to conduct tests for all the skills mentioned in candidates’ CVs. 

Over to you

If you’ve understood the importance of conducting background checks in India on freshers, well done! The above mentioned checks are critical to hiring the right kind of entry-level candidates in companies. Employee background verification checks of fresher candidates can range from something as simple as the candidate’s university identity card to reference checks from organizations where the candidate has interned to medical record to character checks by speaking with friends and neighbors of the candidate. 

Background checks could be as simple or as detailed as required by a particular profession or a company. It is up to the HR team and the hiring managers to hire the right kind of entry-level employees. Employee background verification companies make it easy for organizations.