Background Checks
When someone is paying a staffing service to find people and skills, the service wants to make sure people are who they say they are. Background checks will verify what you put on your application. An extensive background check will confirm where you grew up and where you went to high school, and also check what you are saying about college and advanced degrees. Your best bet is always to be truthful. If you did not complete college or graduate school, do not lie and say that you did. A background check will uncover this false hood, and the staffing service will either fire you if you are already working for it or use the falsifying of information as a reason not to ever put you to work. Do not think because you are a professional technical temp you are beyond this type of check. A staffing service is paid for a product, and many services will invest in extensive background checks in order to keep honest people honest.
Many staffing services work with businesses that want a more extensive review. A criminal background check is an exploration of a person's background to see if there is any history of criminal activity. It can be done in the local court to see if a prospective temp has any outstanding warrants, has had an arrest, or has been convicted of a crime. Someone's record can also be checked on a statewide or national basis.
If the staffing service checks a prospective temp for criminal history, the service will do it by the person's birthday, Social Security number, current and past addresses, or driver's license number. Companies that specialize in background checks have become very sophisticated and are able to find out the facts. My advice would be to tell the service the truth about yourself. Sooner or later the truth will come out.
More and more businesses are conducting criminal record checks when hiring permanent employees and require the same investigations of temps who work on their premises. This is especially true for banks and financial institutions. Some banks have the same standards for temps who work for them as they do for their fulltime employees. This means the temps would have to pass a criminal background check before they work there. The best rule is to always tell the truth.
Credit Checks
Background checks may also uncover your credit history. You have the right to ask exactly what the checks are that will be run on you. In fact, you would be smart to do so. It does not matter on every job what your credit history is. There are many people who find them selves in trouble with their creditors and the reason they have signed up with a staffing service is to straighten out or pay off their bills. The places where your credit history will matter are financial institutions. Places like banks or anyplace a temp is expected to handle money may try to avoid hiring someone who does not have an acceptable credit rating.
If you get turned down for a job with a staffing service because of your credit rating, do not despair. Not every single part time or full time temporary job requires that you pass a credit check. There are other jobs and plenty of staffing services that will gladly work with you. Paying off your debts is an honorable thing. You may ask to see your credit check or you can call your local credit bureau and for a nominal fee find out what exactly is being reported about you. Read on about what happened to Ashley with her credit check.
Ashley had been a full time homemaker for the entire 20 years of her marriage. When she and her husband divorced she realized she would have to go to work outside the home. Ashley had studied library science in college and had volunteered with the public library system and archived books as well as helped with research. Ashley decided to register with a staffing service that could help her use these skills to find work.
The staffing service had a bank as a client, and this particular bank needed a temp to catalog all its records. The skills Ashley had picked up as a volunteer for the library made her a good candidate for the job. The staffing service had Ashley sign a consent form that would allow the service to conduct a routine credit and criminal background check; this was a requirement for any temp to work in this particular bank.
Imagine Ashley's surprise when the credit check reported her ex husband was not paying bills. Even though he and Ashley were divorced, Ashley's credit rating was affected by bills that had both of their names on them. Fortunately for Ashley, the scores on this credit rating still allowed her to work at this bank, but the experience was a rude awakening for her as to what type of credit she really had as a result of her ex husband's activities.
If you have a question about your credit rating, call your local credit bureau. It should be able to provide you with the same record that it will release to a staffing service about your credit rating.
Some businesses require a certain credit rating before a temp can work for them. These businesses are usually banks that have credit standards for their full time employees and want to apply the same standards to temps. Remember, while a bad credit rating will prevent you from working in some businesses, others will not care. The reason you are temping is to make money.
