How To Make a Career in Background Verification Industry?

It is great to learn that you have decided to make a career in background verification industry. The next logical step would be to find out the different positions that you can apply to become an integral part of this industry. But, before we look at the different positions and the different skill sets required to excel in the positions in order to ensure a long, fulfilling career, it is important to understand that unlike other industries, working in background verification industry is quite different. You need to be on your toes all the time. The reason being, you will be entrusted with certain critical tasks that will help in scrutinizing the background information of candidates in question. 

So, without any further delay, let us start off with the different profiles that you can opt to be an integral part of a background verification industry. If you think you have specific skill sets pertaining to any of the jobs enumerated below you can apply to any of the leading background verification companies in India.

1. Client Coordinator

As a client coordinator you will work as the face of the company wherein your major responsibility would be to speak with the client, i.e.; the accounts manager over the phone, in person or through email and understand their requirements. Your ultimate objective would be to provide excellence in customer service and maximize the client experience. Some of the major skill sets required for this position include: excellent communication skills, pleasant personality, knack of dealing with people and great analytical skills.  Some of your job responsibilities will include:

• Document and secure records from the existing customers
• Maintain confidentiality of both candidates and the clients
• Maintaining and developing existing and new customers through proper account support and liaison with internal processing staff
• Handling the client queries and escalation calls and coordinating with HRs, directors and other officials for the verification. 

2. Report Writer

Report writers are a crucial part of the background verification process. To become a report writer, you need to have a knack of understanding report structure as per the requirement of the client along with the proficiency in working with databases, spreadsheets and reporting software. Some other duties of a report writer include: 

• Documenting and maintaining daily reports by closely working with the end-users 
• Gathering report requirements and ensuring proper validation
• Modify existing reports as per the client requirements

3. Quality Reviewer

As a quality reviewer, your job would be to evaluate the quality of data entry work done by data entry operators and case researchers thereby ensuring that the right source of information has been used by cross validating the verification obtained by the operation team. You should also have the knack of finding errors in verification reports and train the operations team to minimize these errors. This makes it significant for you to have strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to maintain tracker of your own performance. To grow as a quality reviewer is important to have good knowledge of MS Excel & MS Office. 

4. Client Servicing - Team Leader

As a client servicing team leader it would be your duty to manage the client service team of 8-10 client servicing executives and ensuring that delivery standards are met as per the client requirement. Some of your duties will include:

• Ensuring steady progress on client requirements and share monthly reporting deliverables with superiors
• If there are any high priority cases, then you need to work with the operations team for effective results
• Create and execute client service strategies for your organization
• Ensure steady functioning of customer service operations to track and identify high value clients
• Build strong client relationships.

Some of the skill sets that you need to possess in order to excel in the position of a client servicing team leader include: excellent communication skills, go getter attitude, knowledge of MS Office and good man management skills. 

Vivek Asrani is a content specialist at cFIRST Background Checks, one of leading employee background verification companies in india. Vivek writes about the various aspects of recruitment technology.

How Does Employee Background Verification Work in India?

The process of employee background verification in India is still at an infancy stage. Although, background verification has always been on the radar of HR professionals, its role has been limited to verification of educational documents and past experience letters. But, with the recent rise in incidents of falsified profiles, Indian organizations have started to include employee background verification as a key component of their recruitment and screening process. 

The process of background verification in India varies across organizations and industries. But the standard process includes a comprehensive check of the candidate’s educational degrees, employment details, residential address, credit scores and criminal background. The time taken to complete the background verification depends on the extent of probing required. If you have never conducted background verification of your employees before and thinking of trying it, you would do well to hire one of the trustworthy background verification companies in India.  

Typically, background verification process in India includes the following:

1. Employment verification

The background verification partner commences the process by calling the past employers to scrutinize the details provided by the candidate in their resume. It will include: conduct and behavior, employment duration, verification of pay slips and performance history. By doing adequate research you can get a fair idea about whether the candidate is the right fit for the vacancy and will be able to adjust to your organizational culture or not. 

2. Education verification

In the next step, the candidate’s educational credentials are verified. It has been observed that certain candidates due to extreme pressure tend to falsify their educational credentials to secure a good job. It can harm the reputation of your organization if the candidate is not able to perform well in the vacant position. This makes screening partners to approach universities to confirm the educational qualification of the candidate. Most of the screening firms have access to the National Academics Repository which makes their task a little bit easier.

3. Residential verification

After successful verification of the educational credentials of the candidate, the next step is to verify their residential address. Now, you might wonder why would someone lie about their residence address? The sad part is some people do who are involved in some sort of crimes and frauds to prevent themselves from getting caught. This makes it extremely critical to carry out residential verification as a part of background verification in India. The process is completed by calling or visiting the candidate’s home and getting it verified by their family member or neighbor.

4. Criminal verification

Earlier, criminal verification was never carried out by Indian organizations. But, recently there has been a rise in cases of harassment, frauds and other crimes at a workplace that has awakened organizations to stay alert by conducting criminal verification on candidates. Screening partners have contacts in courts, which gives them easy access to court records and criminal databases that assist in screening the past of the candidate. 

Once these four steps have been completed, the employee background verification gets over in India. Based on the results obtained, the organization can make the hiring decision. Although, there is always an opportunity to screen the candidates yourself, it is advisable to take assistance from a professional background screening vendor. Their expertise, knowledge and access to information repository can fasten the background verification process and also make it reliable.