Responsible hiring practices in the modern workplace require careful background screenings. If your potential candidates have lived or worked overseas or if your company is hiring foreign nationals to work for you in their home country, you’ll need to run international pre-employment checks to verify identities and credentials and uncover disqualifying criminal behavior. International employment checks are more complicated and take more time than domestic checks, but the protection and peace of mind they provide are just as valuable.

Keys to Success

Get the Right Partner

The most important thing you can do to ensure your global pre-employment background checks are effective is to outsource screening to a reputable background check firm with extensive international experience that can provide the following:

• On-the ground information collection across a wide selection of countries
• Different screening protocols tailored specifically to the candidate and position in question
• Domestic and international compliance services to keep you on the right side of the law anywhere in the world you need to conduct a search
• Advanced technology designed to streamline the process for you and the candidate
• Easy to understand reports that provide the information you need so you can make informed hiring decisions

Beware of Pitfalls

First of all, international background checks are possible; though it’s true there are hurdles, getting the information you need about international hires can be done. Nevertheless, it’s important to be aware of the following potential pitfalls when performing global checks:

No Global Database

There is no single global database that can be used for any kind of worldwide search. You might think that in this modern age of digital technology and international security concerns that you’d at minimum be able to find one source for criminal records, but you’d be wrong. Any search you do will need to be conducted on a country-by-country basis.

Lots of Local Regulations

Not only do global searches need to be done locally, but compliance is also a local issue. Everything about the process will vary from location to location including documentation requirements and even information that’s actually available.

Inconsistencies

Getting the information is not the only hurdle; understanding the information can be just as challenging. Criminal records are different across the world. For example, an offense that the United States might classify as a felony is considered a misdemeanor someplace else. Education, work history, professional credentials, driving records, and even credit information that comes from foreign countries needs translation and interpretation before being used for hiring decisions.

Background Checks are Still the Right Move

Despite the challenges posed by international employment background checks, the benefits far outweigh the costs. Solid, informed, responsible hiring decisions at home and abroad call for careful screenings done by experienced professionals.