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Background Checks

The Internet is loaded with ads from companies that claim they can provide you with instant criminal background information about a candidate for employment.  As far as Barada Associates is concerned, we would never advise an employer to make a hiring decision on any sort of “instant” criminal background check.  Why not? Because the instant information is coming from a secondary data base and could be completely wrong.

At most, instant court checks provide nothing more than a threshold that should cause employers to go to the primary source of the information to verify its accuracy.  The primary source is the court in which the charge was filed and adjudicated, and most of the time that means verifying the information in the clerk’s office of a county courthouse.

“Instant” court checks are nothing more than a swipe of information grabbed from some national criminal data base which contains no information about the outcome of the case.  Worse yet, there’s no way to even know if the name of the person that comes up as having been charged with an offense is the same person as your candidate for employment!

About all that can be said for an “instant” criminal background check is that it’s quick and cheap.  As far as being a useful tool for making hiring decisions, well, it’s simply not!