How Are Education Background Checks Used?

Background checks are used for many purposes. Whether you’re an employer looking to check out your applicants’ criminal history, a business owner looking to partner with someone new, or a landlord hoping to approve new tenants, a background check is often one of the best and simplest ways to ensure you’re making a sound, informed decision.

One of the most important elements of background checks is often the education verification portion. According to recent research, nearly half of all job applicants embellished or fibbed either portions of or their entire educational background to land a higher paying job they weren’t necessarily qualified for. With this in mind, verifying one’s educational background is an important element of the background check process. In this article, we’ll go over how this type of background check is often used and what you should know about the process.

Why Utilize an Education Background Verification?

In the most general terms, an education background verification is a good way to safeguard businesses and personal life decisions. From online romance scams to employer liability, verifying one’s educational history is essential to making informed choices. Here are some reasons that apply not only to employers, but to the general public as well:

• Ensure that qualified individuals are working at a place of employment
• Promoting workplace success
• Avoiding negligence lawsuits and other legal claims against employers
• Promoting workplace safety and security
• Giving honest individuals a chance at employment
• Avoiding personal harm in new relationships
• Verifying a business partner’s history and qualifications

There are many other reasons to look into one’s educational history, but mainly it’s a test of honesty and integrity in a day and age when resume embellishment and untrue personal claims to enhance one’s appeal are commonplace.

How Long Education Verification Generally Takes

Depending on where the information is sourced from, education verification shouldn’t take more than a few business days to complete. Since the majority of education-related information is public record, information should be obtained rather quickly and without issue; however, in a few cases it might take a little more digging to determine the legitimacy of one’s educational background claims.

Other Important Information You Should Know

Education verification often looks for the degrees that were claimed on the individual’s application; however, most places of employment automatically look for high school graduation or diploma records. If you are an applicant, be aware that your degrees can take time to post to the public and may take some time to generate into the school’s system, which can result in a false negative educational background (meaning it shows you do not have a degree when you actually do). It’s important to be forthcoming with employers and institutions to ensure you aren’t held accountable for such delays.

Tips for Employment Application

It may be tempting to embellish on your employment application – especially if you’ve been at the job hunt for an extended period of time. The job market these days is highly competitive, and it’s tough to set yourself apart from all the other qualified individuals out there. However, it’s important to keep in mind that embellishing on an application usually doesn’t end well, particularly when the employer utilizes background screening processes. Here are some tips for your employment application:

• Be prepared to explain background-related concerns to employers
• Be truthful and forthcoming about your educational history
• Highlight your true strengths and let your personality shine during interviews
• Be persistent with your application and let the employer know how you will add to their business
• Check with your educational institutions to ensure that your degrees have been posted as part of public record
• Perform a background check on yourself to see what comes up

These are all great ways to put yourself ahead of the crowd of other applicants. In many cases, even if someone has an impressive educational background listed on their resume, that doesn’t mean they’re the right person for the job. Keep in mind that lying on your application will reflect far more poorly in the long run and won’t do you any favors if you get caught.

How We Can Help You

Here at Affordable Background Checks, we provide employers and the general public with a wide range of background check options. If you’d like to verify that your educational record is indeed correct, please look over our website to determine what options are available to you, or feel free to get in touch with one of our helpful professionals for more information.

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