Employee Verification
Find and Verify Legitimate Employees
Honesty is the best policy, but not everyone lives by that Golden Rule. Employee fraud not only costs businesses money, but it puts companies into a liability risk situation. Simple resume embellishment in a highly competitive job market is becoming more and more commonplace. Performing employee verification during a candidate onboarding process can save an employer from a lot of bigger problems down the line.
Ways Employee Fraud Happens
There are a variety of reasons potential candidates may fabricate their employment history.
For example, candidates may have gaps in their employment history. These reasons can include maternity leave, returning to school, developing a small business or time spent incarcerated. Sometimes, candidates want to hide this type of information from their potential employers and try to do this by extending the gaps between their valid job’s start and end dates.
Other times, potential candidates may falsify titles in previous positions. People do this in an attempt to advance their careers and push for higher pay from new employers.
Why This Check is Important
Confirming a potential employee’s past work experience is one of the most important background checks an employer can perform. It is one of the most common areas where an applicant can falsify information. Looking into a potential candidate’s work history can reveal a lot of information about their job stability and loyalty to an employer.
Employers should do their due diligence to get to know their employees before they work for them. They should check the validity of the information they are providing in their resume. Doing this can save a business millions of dollars each year by avoiding having to dismiss employees who are not who they say they are and then restarting the recruitment process.
Plus, in places like the United States, employee verification is required by law.
Employee Verification in the United States
The Immigration Reform and Control Act came into effect in 1986. It is a directive that requires employers to verify that all newly hired employees are authorized to legally accept employment in the United States. The I-9 form, or the Employment Eligibility Verification Form, was created to help employers meet these legal demands.
Employment verification is the most common type of identity verification. In the United States, the I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification Form is used to verify the identity and employment authorization for individuals going through an employment onboarding process. It allows employers to know where an applicant has worked before and if the information they have provided in their resumes is accurate. Plus, it ensures that any individual up for hire is legally allowed to work in the United States.
Conducting a Verification
All United States employers must complete the I-9 Form for each individual they choose to hire. This is true for citizens and non-citizens. Employees and employers are required to thoroughly complete the form and an employee must prove his or her authorization of employment.
The information provided in employee verification comes directly from employers. It includes basic job information such as:
Job start and end dates
Titles held
Salary
Job duties
