How Employment Verification Supports Accurate Hiring Decisions

It’s common for organizations to evaluate candidates through a process that includes resume reviews, interviews, skills assessments, and criminal background checks before onboarding. Criminal background checks are an important step to keeping your workplace physically safe. But what is your team doing to protect your ROI and build trust? According to a recent Forbes article, "The True Cost Of A Bad Hire—And How To Avoid Making One," one employer put a price tag on a bad hire based on their own experience: $47,000.

Hiring is a time-consuming process, but rehiring takes even more time and comes at a higher cost than just your time. Employment verifications can help employers fill in the gaps by confirming that a candidate's work history aligns with the needs of a role before getting started, supporting more confident hiring decisions, providing important context for misunderstandings, and building trust throughout the process.

What are the benefits of employment verification?

Employment verifications help build trust and protect ROI by confirming a candidate’s work history and key details before they start their role, giving hiring teams space to make informed decisions. Meeting organizational goals isn't just about filling a seat as fast as you can. It's about placing qualified individuals in positions where they contribute to an organization’s growth and long-term success.

Employment verifications can help support your hiring and cultural alignment by:

• Confirming a candidate’s qualifications
• Identifying discrepancies early
• Providing insights into a candidate's previous work performance and reliability

Employment verification can be an effective support tool to confirm that candidates are a good fit when used alongside other screening tools, such as criminal record searches, education verification, and professional license verification.  

It’s not always just about confirming job titles.

Some candidates may come from other industries but still possess the skills and experience needed for the role. Employment history can provide additional context that helps build confidence, mutual trust, and understanding during the early stages of hiring and onboarding. For example, employment verification can help provide a better understanding of relevant experience in the work environment, career progression and growth, and how that experience specifically aligns with the needs of a role.

What can you find with employment verifications?

Depending on the employer, available records, and state regulations you hire and operate in, employment verification can help confirm accuracy for:

• Dates of employment
• Job titles
• Eligibility for rehire
• Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration/Department of Transportation (FMCSA/DOT) status
• Salary information, when available
• Additional employment details, when permitted

No single screening tool can fully determine whether a candidate is the right fit, but employment verification can provide valuable information that supports a more informed hiring process.

*** Some employment history information is protected under state laws and may not be available or permitted for use as a determining factor in employment decisions. Always consult with your legal counsel before adding any packages or services that use information as a determining factor.

What if employment verifications can’t be found?

Missing employment records and difficult-to-reach former employers are among the biggest challenges employers face, especially when hiring at scale.

Verified Credentials offers employment verification solutions designed to support efficient, accurate hiring decisions that don’t waste your time hunting down records to ensure a candidate is a good fit for a role. Using a combination of employment databases and experienced verification specialists, our team works to confirm candidate-provided information while keeping employers informed throughout the process.

Here’s how it works

1. Our team of in-house Verification Specialists starts by running a database search that searches over 813 million employee records provided by over four million employers.
2. After that, if a record still can’t be verified or needs further confirmation, our team attempts to reach a certified business contact to gather first-hand records.
3. If employer-sourced records are not available, our team pursues other avenues for verification. For employer visibility, we log each attempt at contact and include them all in your order dashboard.

When it comes to hiring, the goal isn't to fill a seat. It's about making informed decisions that support organizational goals, long-term success, and building mutual trust and understanding that fit your organization’s culture. Learn more about Employment Verifications here or speak with our team to schedule a consultation.