Methods of Employment Verification for Small Business Owners
As a small business owner, you are likely to wear many hats. Even as you read this, you are probably thinking of four other things you need to be doing right now. When it comes time to hire new team members, the list of tasks you need to complete every day grows even longer. New hires can have a tremendous impact on your company and your long-term success. You know how very important it is to employ the very best individuals, but you also know that there is a crunch on your time. Instead of cutting corners and putting your company at risk, there are better, more efficient ways to accomplish some of your hiring tasks. Let’s look at ways to better verify employment in order to speed up and streamline your hiring process.
What Is Employment Verification?
Employment verification is a vital step in the hiring process which requires the employer, recruiter, or hiring manager to verify each place of employment listed on the application. If someone has a long job history, then this can sometimes mean there will be a very long list of names and numbers. Each place listed needs to be contacted and have employment verified. This can be very time-consuming, but it is a crucial part of the process which should not be skipped.
Verifying employment history is important because you need to know, first of all, if the applicant is honest. Employment history verification will reveal this. You also need to know what type of employee the applicant was at other places of business.
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Delegation
One way you can speed up this process will be to delegate this task to another individual. If you have an assistant, partner, or even another employee whom you trust, you can give them this job. Once they have verified the employment history, you can simply review their notes. This can be an easy way to accomplish this task, but only if you have someone you trust.
Third-Party Employment Verification Service
Another option would be to use a third party employment verification service. These types of services will take the employment history you provide and will contact the necessary individuals to confirm past employment. This can be a quick way to get this task accomplished. These types of services work well if you simply want to verify the employment without speaking personally to past employers.
It is important to note that if you find it important to personally speak to each past employer, then you may want to consider conducting a professional reference check, which can also be done through a third-party service. There are some benefits to doing this yourself, though. When you personally contact past employers, you will get the opportunity to discuss the applicant’s work behavior, skills, qualifications, and how those qualifications were used on a daily basis. Verifying that someone worked at a certain location for a certain amount of time does not really tell you what kind of employee they necessarily were while they were there. If you need more in-depth detail, you should definitely take care of this task yourself.
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Combination of Both
Another option would be to do a combination of both. You could pick one or two past employers to speak with personally. Perhaps you will take the two most impressive past employment references. You can then use an employment verification service to verify the others. This combination will save you time, while also giving you the chance to speak with past employers about more in-depth details concerning a person’s work history.
Verifying past employment is a crucial part of the hiring process. As a small business owner, you cannot afford to cut any corners when you are bringing new members to your team.
