How To Prepare For Background Checks When Job Hunting

Part of the job hunting process should include getting all of your personal and private information in order. Why? Because if you reach the interview stage and beyond, employers are likely to run a background check on you. This might sound scary, but it’s standard practice that happens behind closed doors all the time. 

Why do employers run background checks? Well, put yourself in their shoes. If you were a business owner, you’d want to have full faith in everyone working for you. You’d want to ensure that they weren’t hiding anything or lying about things on their application. The best way to do this is by running checks on their background to see if everything lines up. If the report comes back clean, you know you have a better chance of trusting this candidate over one with a ‘dirty’ record. 

Two questions now spring up: what do employers look for when running background checks? How can you prepare for one? Keep on reading, and you will see how to prepare for these checks when job hunting. In turn, this will also reveal some of the common things employers will research about you…

Get your credit report in order

Companies will run a credit check on you as a way of finding lots of your personal information. Your credit score itself is unlikely to matter to them, they just want to check the information on your file. It’s an easy way to see if this lines up with what you’ve put on your application. 

So, be sure you get a copy of your credit report ahead of time to check that everything is up-to-date. It might sound silly, but even simple things like still having an old address on the report can cause raised eyebrows. Match all the information on your job applications with what’s on your credit file. 

Comb through social media

Nowadays, employers are presented with a free tool to find out lots about you: social media. 

Twitter and Facebook are usually the first places people look when running simple background checks. LinkedIn is also popular because it contains lots of employment history and details of you as a professional. Comb through your social media accounts and get rid of anything that might stand in the way of your application. In truth, securing your accounts is the best option. Make them private, so only people that follow you can look through them. This prevents Tweets or messages from years ago from coming back to haunt you. 

Review your records

You will have so many different records that an employer can pull up to learn more about you. One obvious place to start is with your educational records/history. This is where an employer can see your grades, where you studied, and what qualifications you have. If they don’t align with what’s on your application, it can raise some alarms. So, check your educational records to be sure they are accurate and you didn’t accidentally put down the wrong college or grade! 

Next, think about your criminal record. Ideally, it will be completely clean and you won’t even have any court summons. But, for whatever reason, you may find yourself with something on there from many moons ago. The good news is that there is a clean slate law that came into action a few years ago, allowing you to basically seal your records after a certain amount of time. As a result, employers won’t see them, so they won’t be put off by anything that happened years ago. 

Double-check your employment history

It’s very easy to forget about some jobs you had when you were younger. Likewise, you might think about embellishing a role you had within a company to strengthen your application. Unfortunately, your employment history is one of the first things an employer will look at. If they find that you’ve lied about where you worked and what you did, it really doesn’t reflect positively on your character. 

Be sure you double-check your employment history before you write a resume or submit an application. Don’t over-exaggerate your roles because you could easily be pinned as a liar. Just be honest, it’s as simple as that. 

Honesty really is the best policy when it comes to job hunting. Companies are going to run background checks to see if your information lines up, and even slight discrepancies can put them off. Follow the advice above to get ready for any background checks, putting you in the best possible position to secure a role.