Employment Decision from Pending Background Checks.

The responsibilities of hiring managers are finding the right applicants for the right positions, and making a well-informed employment decision.

In some cases, organizations have lost out on valuable, high-level applicants because the background check conducted on them took too long to complete. This has prompted Human Resource (HR) professionals to make their employment decision based on pending or partial background checks. This is the wrong course of action and frankly, reckless on the organization’s part in numerous ways because many times, some records may be either inaccurate and/or incomplete.

First, there may be information reported in the background check that would disqualify the new hire from working with the organization. Second, if an organization decided not to hire someone based on the pending background check, the applicant may be entitled to filing a case of discrimination since their entire background check was not completed.

A possible alternative for organizations to take would be conducting the background check after offering employment to avoid the possible discrimination risk associated with not knowing the qualifications or experience of the new hire. All in all, organizations need to at the very least ensure a report is completed before making any type of employment decision.