To the employers on the forum, who do you use to perform background checks on potential business associates and employees?

I think most Government Contractors and NRC regulated employers use Pinkerton .

there are ,any retailers that say ( almost as a threat) that they require "extensive " background checks.

truth be told that they decide who they spend the money on after a couple of interviews.

those things are not free.

its pretty funny when they check three people, and let three more slide through.

and one of each group get fired for serious misdemeanors and a or a felony .

When I applied for a position with the PA Department of Corrections, my background investigations were made by the Pennsylvania State Police and took over 6 months.

Friends and former co workers were calling me and asking: "Police called me about you. What kind of mess are you in"?

aside: I guess that's why I never got a speeding ticket in Pennsylvania. They ran my DL and found I was in their system.

Company called Sterling for background and E-Verify for legal status for immigration

I worked as a contractor for a major credit card company you've all heard of. The contractor claimed they did backgrounds checks. One of the women on my team had been with us for two years before the contract was terminated, but she was one of the few who got hired on directly. But the mother ship company did a real background check and it turned out she had an old felony conviction for domestic violence. Offer retracted. She was devastated. I guess our contractor company wasn't real thorough.

You can usually tell the quality and thoroughness of a background check by how far into the past it goes back. Often, employers just want 3 or 5 years.
10 years is a good minimum. And you need to check references with a personal visit. And visit all the courthouses in the areas in which your subject resided. And talk to as many neighbors you can for the residences your subject has listed. Then delve into any social media use. And tie it all in with the usual database info checks.
A big red flag (unless military or business assignment) is multiple residences over short periods of time in multiple cities or even states.
Sound expensive and time consuming? It is. That's why few do it. And even with all this due diligence, a bad apple can slip through.

The term "background check" is a stupid one that can mean anything from doing some internet searching and doing a little public domain research to using a paid name search service like Thompson Reuters CLEAR to having someone go interview friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, etc and pull dirt on all of them, too. Coming from a policing background, I equate "background check" to more of the last one.

What level of depth are you looking for?

quote:

Originally posted by ChicagoSigMan:
To the employers on the forum, who do you use to perform background checks on potential business associates and employees?

My PI agency does them, just depends how deep you want to go. Send me an e-mail in my profile, I can advise depending on what your needs are.

Yes, I’m in a profession where fingerprinting and background checks are mandatory. As technology has been improving, and different systems have been connected, it seems in the last few years nothing slips through the cracks. We find every time a person was fingerprinted regardless of the charges, expungement, etc. Usually it is not a problem provided if it was disclosed during the interview/paperwork process. The thing is, people with 20 plus years experience that had charges dismissed from a college bar fight, who have never had the dismissed charges come up in previous background checks often do not disclose these types of events. When they come up now they are shocked. In our paperwork, we ask if you have ever been arrested. I have not been able to hire many really qualified candidates due to non disclosure.

The large international company I worked for had it's own background and criminal investigations section. They were very thorough. If the company had cleared them, the usually sailed through an Office of Personnel Management check easily.

Our business (100-125 employees) uses ADP for background checks.
https://apps.adp.com/apps/29708#!overview