Who Conducts Employee Background Checks?

Any employer conducting an employee background check will probably turn to an employment screening agency. These companies roll the role of private investigators, employment screeners and data brokers into one.

There are small, one person investigator agencies to large background checking companies.

Typically, employers looking for an employee background check will turn to one of these third parties, but many smaller businesses do background checks in house. This trend grows as the economy dips and employers are looking to save.

There are also many online background checking web sites of varying quality. Employers usually find these sites through word of mouth as many "find everything" sites are illegitimate and do not provide quality background checks.

The good sites, however, give small business owners easy access to public records -- where most allowed background check information is available.

These background checking sites will provide former employers, former homes and a slew of other information.

Employers doing employee background checks will often come into public records that are not allowed when deciding on employment. This is where background checks become very objective, the information is available and employers are held only on the honor system not to use it. But, if an employer is found to have used illegal information, the prospective employee can sue under federal law.

Legal cases such as this are quite rare however and seldom make it to court. They are often thrown out for lack of information or settled by the employer.