Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted desperately to know more about a person? Perhaps it was your son’s first solo camp out with the Cub Scouts and you were not sure if you trusted the Scout leader. Perhaps it was a church function and you were unable to attend, but wished desperately that you knew more about the chaperone. These are common occurrences – numerous things happen in life that can keep you from physically being with your children and are forced to relegate their care and wellbeing to another adult. However, while the situation might be unavoidable, background checks can give you the information that you need to ensure your children are safe.
Perhaps you have business concerns. Do you need to attract a new investor or two to help ensure better cash flow to your small or medium sized business? If so, then you certainly know the pitfalls that can come with choosing the wrong investor. Perhaps you need to hire a business partner, but have been burned in the past by thieves masquerading as responsible entrepreneurs. These situations have become increasingly common as the years have passed. However, that does not mean that you need to sit passively by and LET it happen to you. Background checks can help you ensure that your business has the firm, stable footing it needs for success.
Perhaps you are concerned about the hiring process. You know that the only way to ensure that your business has the best chance of survival is to find the best employees. You need to hire those committed to success, those who will grow with your company and still avoid those with sticky fingers and the propensity to destroy a business. Background checks can help you here, as well. What do background checks offer? How can background checks be of use to your business, your family or your life in general? First, it is vital that you understand that background checks can be of immense use to anyone at all.
Background checks are simple tools capable of accomplishing enormous feats. How does this happen? Consider this scenario: You are about to be married to the man of your dreams. He is everything you have ever hoped for; kind, sincere, handsome and more. However, after the wedding, things begin slowly going downhill. Perhaps he drinks too much and is arrested for DUI. Perhaps he’s an abuser and gets mean when he drinks. Perhaps he has no true job or career and simply lives off your efforts. Regardless, your fairytale union is ruined by cold, hard reality. Background checks can help prevent this scenario from becoming a reality. How can they help in a situation such as this?
Background checks offer immense amounts of information. For instance, in the abovementioned scenario, if the bride had conducted a background check on her soon-to-be husband, she might have noticed that he had previous DUI charges. She might have noticed that he had been arrested for aggravated assault. Perhaps she would have noticed that he had been fired for theft, laziness or simply couldn’t hold a job for longer than a few months at a time.
Background checks can give you access to all of this information and much more. Of course, background checks offer you access to a person’s criminal history, which is an invaluable benefit. However, just because someone’s criminal history is clean doesn’t mean they are “on the up and up.” For instance, consider the husband from the previous scenario once more. The fact that he could not hold a job would have been reflected in his employment history. In addition, the bride-to-be might also have been able to detect other falsities in his character, through information such as his educational history, or his credit history. These records do not lie and they can shed an immense amount of light on a person’s character.
To take the use of background steps a bit further, they could be used by anyone entering the dating world, to help ensure they did not choose the wrong love interest. These tools offer instant information on anyone at all. All you need in most cases is a first and last name. A Social Security number helps ensure the most accurate results, but is often not required. Other supplemental information might be a previous or current address, a maiden name and other criteria. These pieces of information simply help ensure that the right records are provided. Running a search based only a name is certainly possible, but due to the commonality of similar or identical names, it can take a bit more research time. Therefore, it is important to provide as much information as possible when conducting background checks.
As you now know how important background checks are, you should know where to conduct them. The best option is to conduct background checks through online providers. This is the only way to obtain “instant” results. If you opted to go through your local courthouse, not only would you have to spend considerable amounts of time searching, but you would also incur other costs.
Of course, you will have to find a legitimate website offering background checks. Many different companies have popped up seemingly overnight, but they might not be the right choice for your needs. Quite a few companies make exorbitant claims about the number of records they include in their database. If you find a provider that claims to have “billions and billions” of records in their database, it’s a safe bet they’re making highly exaggerated claims and should be avoided.
It is very important that you find a reputable, authentic website offering background checks. This is the only way that you can be sure you are able to locate the exact records that you need without incurring high costs and frustration due to a lack of actual information from your background checks.