cFIRST Background Checks - Our Journey So Far

We started as a team of 20 people, more than 20 years back in a garage in Bangalore, is now a unit of 400+ passionate individuals who come together to achieve the dream Mr. Viral Vora had dreamt of 20+ years back. While Mr. Viral was in the United States of America, as an Engineering student, he learnt the anguish of companies and what they went through during the process of hiring and the repercussions of a wrong hire. 

Legal mitigations, loss of face and brand name, futile capital investment and cost to company as a part of the hiring process, combined with frustration made Mr. Viral reconsider how he was going to respond to a crisis of this nature. This was the point of germination for cFIRST Background Checks LLP, when Viral came back to India and established a tech unit in Bangalore in the year 2008. He soon moved to Ahmedabad and the headquarter of cFIRST was established with a very small team, which was soon joined by Ms. Lourdes Fernandes in 2012. Her vision to bring cFIRST on the global map aligned with the vision of Mr. Vora and together they took some major business decisions in the year 2013 that made cFIRST what it is today. cFIRST established their headquarter in the United States of America, in Cincinnati, Ohio, that is now one of the leading background check companies in the U.S.

cFIRST Background Checks takes pride in announcing that it has 2000+ clients from across the world now, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to cutting-edge start-ups, that continue to make difference in the world with their expertise including tech-giants such as IBM and Capgemini. Currently, cFIRST is the only Indian background screening company to have global footprint that can cater to clients in India, in the USA, and 175+ other countries.

cFIRST has also been awarded by one of the world’s largest companies as their ‘Trusted Verification Partner’ as the team continues to tread on the edge and make their mark every single day. They continue to dominate the global market with their precision of services, overcoming road-blocks and automating the process of hiring with integrity, competence and commitment.

Throughout this remarkable journey of delivering excellence, cFIRST has gained accolades which they are humbled by. With a clientele of more than 2000 organizations worldwide, it has successfully conducted more than 5 million background checks since its inception. It is an ISO 27001:2013 certified company and is also NABPS, NASSCOM NSR empaneled. Furthermore, cFIRST has also received accreditations from ACBCB, IAF, and QIC which have made this trek, nothing short of fascinating.

With an API-integrated clientele platform, cFIRST continues to march ahead, with the same amount of dedication, passion and integrity as it had on the first day of its journey and the team only hopes to keep up with the technology that is yet to unfold in future to continue solving issues related to the process of hiring and recruitment.

Reasons to Conduct Background Screening after Giving Job Offer

Most organizations across the globe are in consensus when it comes to taking the decision of conducting background checks on potential candidates. However, the timing of the check is something that has received mixed response. While there are certain section of experts who have the opinion that organizations need to wait till the final job offer is given to the candidate others think that background screening process should start immediately after the screening process. If you wait till the final job offer is given, it can mean letting go of talented candidates due to shortage of time. But, acting too early can also have its own negative consequences.

Let us now figure out the reasons that prompt organizations to conduct background screening after giving a job offer to the candidate:

Policy

Most of the organizations today have designed their hiring policy in such a way that they need to wait after offering a job offer to conduct background screening process. If they go against this policy it can spark legal issues. Let us explain this with the help of an example. Suppose, your organization has a policy to conduct background checks only after giving the job offer. But, for some definite reason you perform the pre-employment background screening and reject the candidate. He/she might question the policy as to why him/her and not the others? He/she will attribute his/her non-selection due to unfair organizational practices and might even sue your organization by citing unfair hiring practices for singling him/her out. While if you conduct post-offer background checks there is no way candidates can question your logic for conducting the screening process, thereby saving your valuable time and money that you could have spent otherwise on legal cases filed by the candidates.

The cost factor

Generally speaking background checks do not cost much to an organization as they help businesses from hiring a candidate who is a misfit for the position. But, if you perform background checks before giving an offer it will involve an unnecessary expenditure of carrying out screening of each and every candidate who has applied for the position resulting in a financial setback. It also will become impossible for an organization to plan for the expenditure as it would not know the number of candidates who would be applying for the vacant position. Businesses can conduct background checks on the final two or three candidates shortlisted for the position but, it is still more costly than conducting the process on a single person who has been offered the job.

Discrimination

With the help of a background check report, it is possible for you to get so much information pertaining to a candidate than a mere job application. While there is no way the job application can reflect about the candidate’s age, sex, race, religion, color, national origin, disability or family medical history this information is sometimes extracted from background screenings.

If you conduct pre-offer background check and reject the candidate on the basis of the background screening report generated, there can be a case of subconscious bias that can hamper your hiring process. On the other hand, if you conduct post-offer background screening process without having knowledge about that individual’s protected characteristics and find out something negative in the screening report, it will become very hard for the candidate to argue that the reason for their rejection was discrimination and not negative background screening report.

In the end, we would like to conclude by recommending that you take the help of any of the leading background verification companies in india for conducting the screening process after giving a job offer to stay away from legal hassles. This way you will be able to select the best talent available for the vacant position in the shortest turnaround time.

Author Bio:

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.