Background check service providers help companies stay protected by revealing relevant information about their potential and existing employees. Specifically, services such as Checkpeople can bring important information about a candidate’s identity, credit score, employment experience, and education history to an employer’s attention. When looking for the right employee background screening services, it is important to consider ease of use, accuracy, cost, and the types of checks performed. We analyzed tens of providers to determine the best ones to use in 2021.
Sterling
Sterling has a rich array of pre-employment background check options. SterlingNOW, the company’s self-service department, is ideal for smaller companies that need reliable, fast, and affordable background checks. It’s also a great choice if you don’t need to run a very high number of checks. Sterling not only delivers quick results but is also customizable and features an intuitive online portal.
You must give the service your company’s legal name to run a background check. Moreover, your business is obligated by law to have the respective credentials before requesting screenings.
GoodHire
This provider offers background checks to companies of all industries and sizes. Its screenings are fully compliant with the FCRA as it has the status of a credit-reporting agency. It’s our pick for the best option for medium-size businesses that need background checks because it has a fully transparent fee structure and a very user-friendly online portal. GoodHire is best for companies in the technology, staffing, retail, construction, nonprofit, and healthcare industries, but it serves companies in many others as well.
It’s very easy to set up a background check with this company. First, they need to verify your company; this rarely takes more than one business day. Then, you can access their online portal and view and order any background checks right from there. The company applies a tool for online consent when someone orders a background check. Moreover, this tool asks for the screening subject’s consent to the check electronically.
Checkpeople
Checkpeople is great for reverse phone lookup services, yielding the caller’s name and, sometimes, even their address and email. While not a CRA in the strictest sense, their cutting-edge software checks hundreds of millions of records across the country to look for criminal history, business affiliations, property ownership, and all kinds of pertinent professional information. It can also find and pull up birth certificates, previous addresses, divorce certificates, marriage certificates, court documents, previous and current contact information, and more.
The provider carries out automatic, reliable searches of national, state, and county databases and offers access to personal injury case information, bankruptcy filings, and court verdicts.
Instant Checkmate
Instant Checkmate is very good at finding social media and conducting reverse phone lookup. This service is not as fast as our other choices, but eventually, it gets results. The service is reasonably priced and offers highly accurate data. You can opt for a one-month subscription that comes with the option to conduct an unlimited number of checks. In addition, there is also a three-month subscription option. On the downside, one-time reports are not possible.
B&B Reporting
Our final choice has an extensive history in the industry going more than two decades back. The average turnaround is one day. They also boast a criminal history hit rate of almost 20%, which is well above the average for the industry.
The provider’s platform is cloud-based, which makes ordering and looking at background check reports online child’s play. The price is set on a case-by-case basis, depending on the types of records you want to verify or search for. No initial setup fee is charged. Their technology also makes it possible to send candidates electronic consent forms.