Why Employers Should Conduct Identity Verification in a Background Check?

The hiring process in the past few years has undergone a drastic change due to the pandemic and the rise of frauds in this phase.Individuals lost jobs like never before due to the mass layoffs, and as securing jobs in the market became difficult, they even took unethical steps for the same. This made employers rethink and reconsider the whole process, and as a result, candidate and employee digital background verifications became extremely important. These checks help employers identify genuine candidates, and they are empowered to make an informed decision, which was not possible earlier in the case of manual checks. Now, among the many types of checks that are performed, such as #UANCheck, educational check, past-employment check, criminal verification, drug test, and other, identity check helps to ensure the individual is who he/she is claiming to be. Now, as suggested by experts, no matter the field the company is operating in, it is essential to conduct identity checks of candidates/employees. The reasons are many, and in this article to help every employer, and hiring manager understand the importance of performing identity checks on candidates, and employees, here are some of the top reasons that you can take a look at.

What Is an Identity Check?

Under an identity check, an employer gets to verify the address details provided by the candidate, which includes validating the GPS coordinates of the candidate and verifying the images of the house, locality, and nearby landmarks. Plus, it also includes verification of the candidates’ address with an agent visit, where the type of house ownership, the applicant’s relationship with the verifier, the verifier’s ID, and other details are checked.

Further, the person’s ID cards, such as the PAN ID, and the Aadhaar card, are validated against tamper-proof sources to ensure he/she is the same person, he/she is claiming to be. Here, the name of the person, date of birth, and other details that help to know the identity of the person are verified.

Top Reasons Why Employers Should Conduct Identity Verification

Here are some of the reasons that would help you understand why performing identity verification on candidates and employers matters.

Helps to make the background check easier

Identity credentials of a person are required everywhere, therefore, for other verifications such as educational verification and employment verification, the employer first needs to have the basic details of the candidate or employees. Accurate basic details of the candidates or employees make background checking easier, as the employer can go ahead and do any type of employee background check and the process is not delayed due to a lack of essential information.

It happens that sometimes employees and candidates change their names informally. This does not have official records and creates confusion. With the help of a thorough identification check, this can be revealed and would not create a problem in later stages. Plus, the correct information makes it easier to progress with the rest of the digital background verification.

Deter frauds

Fraud is on the rise, and according to the report by Risk Based Security, in 2020 the number of data records that have been compromised will exceed 37 billion in comparison to 2019, an increase of 141%. To curb these frauds, employers need to have a strong digital background checking system in place. And, skipping a proper identity verification, or ignorantly verifying the candidates’ basic identity credentials can surely weaken the digital background check.

Remove friction from the screening process

It might appear to you initially that adding another check, such as an employee identity check, can increase the turnaround time and the friction of the process. However, that is not true. A thorough identity check will help in the process and would reduce the friction that would otherwise arise due to the lack of genuine information about the candidate. This would surely mean collecting the information from the candidate multiple times, and as a result, the process would get delayed.

Reduce onboarding time

When you have a hiring process backed by a strong digital background check, you will be in a position to take the right step at the right time, and the onboarding time will be reduced.

On the other images, if the identity check has not been conducted properly or not at all and the discrepancies have been discovered at a later stage!The solution would be to go through the process again, and the onboarding time would increase. A delayed onboarding process can lead to losing the best candidates to other employers.

Prevent damage to the organisation

If an organization does not invest time in proper identity checks or performs a background check on an inaccurate name, it might end up hiring a criminal who might have impersonated someone to enter the organization. This would be highly risky for the organization and cause not only financial loss but also reputational loss. Plus, such a decision can harm the organization in many other ways, such as workplace violence, data theft, and others.

Conclusion

Confirming the candidate/employee’s identity is extremely important and is one of the ways you can ensure that the rest of the digital background verification process progresses well. Thus, employers need to take the initiative and invest in identity checks. If you want to perform a detailed and thorough identity check of candidates/employees at a large scale, you can hire #Digiverifier, which performs verification against tamper-proof sources, and delivers the best outcome. For more information about the tool, you can get in touch with the team.