If you receive a criminal background report (known as a consumer report by the FCRA), and intend to take adverse action (such as denying employment, firing an existing employee, or impeding one's ability to lease residential space), you MUST provide the applicant with a copy of the report and statement of their rights (Summary of Rights available here). The Summary of Rights also contains affirmative obligations of the employer, so we highly recommend you read it and understand what actions you must take in the case of an adverse action. ScreentoHire.com always recommends seeking the advice of your own legal counsel to advise your of your obligations under your particular state and federal (FCRA) law.

If an applicant believes that information contained in their report is wrong (and sometimes it is), they may inform the employment screening agency, which then must conduct a reinvestigation and if appropriate, remove or correct inaccuracies and inform the consumer of their findings. Remember, the information you obtain generally comes from public records and commercially-available repositories of information - are not always up-to-date and subject to errors.

Employers may exclude applicants from consideration based on criminal records if the employer can show that it considered the gravity and nature of the offence, whether it was job related, and how recently the offense occurred.

ScreentoHire.com advises you to:

(a) include a notice in your standard job/tenant application advising applicants that any job/lease offer they obtain will be contingent upon a satisfactory employment background check;

(b) if your state's laws allow, ask your applicant to broadly disclose any crimes they have been convicted of (not just felonies);

(c) warn your applicant that if you ever discover (at any time) that he/she lied on his/her application, or during the interview process, or omitted any material fact, then the pre-employment process will be terminated or, if already employed, the prospective employee may be fired; and

(d) do not discriminate. Establish a background screening policy and follow it closely to avoid the appearance of any preferental treatment. Do not vary the scope of your background checks for individuals in the same job level or category.