What Comes Up On a Background Check?

Will a prospective employer find out about the candy bar you stole when you were 15? Will they find out about a bust-up you had with your first boss? These are just some of the questions that go through the minds of people when they hear that a background check is being conducted on them.

Almost everyone has a few incidents in their past that we fear won't reflect well on the kind of people we are. This is why many worry about what private investigators will uncover when performing background checks. Is there a genuine reason to worry?

Credit checks are carried out to find out the financial health of an individual. Financial health is important to landlords, employers and even spouses for different reasons.

A landlord will want to know if you are able to keep up with your bills while an employer will want to know if you might have a reason to engage in fraudulent behavior. A potential spouse will want to know the financial health of the person they intend to build a life with. In such checks, a private investigator can uncover information such as a history of reckless spending, missed loan payments, suspiciously large expenses etc.

This was among the first type of background check as more people became wary of hiring individuals who had ties to criminals or who were likely to engage in criminal activity. With many business owners aware of the risk of potential fraud, loss of equipment and even loss of money, most background checks will include a criminal record check.

Many employers believe this is the best way of preventing financial losses. This type of private investigator background check can reveal if you've ever been convicted of a crime, received a citation or even been arrested.

This background check is usually requested by potential employers in order to verify that your work experience is real. Employers also need to perform this check to find out if previous employers have had issues with you in the past. The type of information that can be uncovered by a private investigator include your actual employment duration, serious disciplinary issues at your previous place of work etc.

References are needed by landlords and employers in most cases. A reference check can be done to ascertain that your listed references are real people or entities. This is due to many incidents of individuals who listed references that did not exist in the first place.

A private investigator can follow up on these references and find out if they really exist and if they actually vouch for you.

These types of checks are a legal requirement. If the person you hire or rent out to turns out to be someone else or someone without the right to work in the UK, you could be fined. Private investigators can find out if the person you are dealing with is who they claim to be and whether or not they have a right to work in the country.