A background check is a crucial part of any hiring process. It helps an organisation bring in talent they can trust, both in terms of work capability as well as moral character, by ensuring the veracity of an applicant’s information.

In Malaysia, it is common for recruiters to check the trustworthiness and honesty of job candidates by verifying the information in their resumé or other documents. Looking into a candidate’s history helps eliminate individuals who give false or invalid information, such as fake degrees or fraudulent work records.

A background check may include obtaining and verifying the following information:

1. Employment history

Hiring managers often check to see if the candidate has truly worked for the companies they list on their resumé. This may include corresponding with previous employers to find out why they left their last job, and determining whether or not they are qualified to be hired again.

The candidate’s work history can also help substantiate that they are qualified, productive, and can get along with co-workers or other staff.

2. Education

This check allows an organisation to learn of a candidate’s academic qualifications and highest level of education, on top of allowing hirers to determine if certain academic claims are true.

This is especially important if a job involves very specific skills and the prospective worker claims to have studied or been trained in that field.

With these checks, you’ll be able to obtain the most qualified people and weed out those with fake credentials.

3. Criminal record

For certain companies, it may be necessary to check whether a candidate has a criminal history to ensure the person won’t be a danger to the business or its workers.

While the Malaysian police has a list of those who have been convicted in the country, this information isn’t readily available to third parties; as such, an organisation may have to rely on public information.

If you have to carry out a criminal-record check, it is best to speak with an expert about how to go about doing this.

4. Credit history

This presents an overview of an applicant’s credit score, mortgages and hire-purchases, as well as how they have paid back their debts and loans in the past.

This check is especially important if you hire people to work in banks, investments, accounting, or other financial services.

5. Social life

Looking at how potential employees act and portray themselves on social media says a lot about who they are. So, social media history checks have become increasingly useful in hiring.

Hiring managers may conduct such checks to evaluate how a candidate handles public conversations, for example, or what kind of activities they are into.

It’s important, however, for hirers to ensure they respect the individual’s privacy.

If you are a hiring manager in Malaysia and need to do a pre-employment background check, here are some of the components you might need from a candidate:

• his or her full name according to NRIC;
• current residential and mailing address;
• birth date;
• photo of the candidate;
• photocopy of NRIC;
• references from past/present companies, possibly including pay slips and offer letters;
• relevant school report cards, diplomas and/or certificates.

This article was originally written by Anisa Aznan for jobstore.com, an online job site that specialises in providing jobseekers with the latest job opportunities by matching talented individuals with reputable companies in Malaysia. Find your dream job with over 40,000 job vacancies in Malaysia.