International Background Checking

Are you an employer who is looking into the possibility of hiring an individual from abroad?

Are you handling an employment agency that specializes in recruiting internationally?

Do you want to learn information about investing on a business located in another country?

Many others are finding the need to conduct background check on individuals or another company from abroad. There can be many situations wherein the need to conduct an international background check arise.

While doing a background check internationally might prove difficult, many factors have developed already, making it possible to get necessary data and information from international sources.

You might probably know that many countries all over the world have their laws of the freedom of information. These laws provide individuals with the right to use and obtain their records on police, court and prison and other public records. Each country has different kinds of information retained and available for use.

The information contained on their public records are usually referred to once a need arise. This may involve the checking out of foreign nationalists present in the country. The purpose of doing a background check on these individuals is to ensure national security.

In the United States, an employer who would like to do a background check of a potential worker can choose between engaging two types of international background check services.

Two Types of International Checks:

1.) Employment screening – This involves the validation or verification of supplied information by the foreign applicant. It is not actually a keen investigation to obtain information about the applicant.

In most cases, the employer already has the applicant's name, addresses, contact numbers, educational and employment backgrounds. Aside from that, the employer has already located information that provides the grounds to counter-check the information supplied to him.

The investigator an employer needs to hire for this verification process is someone who is located in the country where the investigation have to be conducted, or the location where the applicant resides.

2.) International investigation – this involves reputable background check agencies with the ability to provide the necessary records and information an employer would require in practically every country all over the world.

Challenges in conducting international background checks

While performing investigations on an international scale, investigators are faced with special challenges.

• Cultural differences – it is not surprising to know that systems and information cannot be taken for granted in the US are overlooked or not available in other countries.

Unlike in the US, other countries' public records and several types of data needed for background screening are not very accessible. Since each country differ in laws, customs and screening procedures, it is not surprising that conducting an international background check offer veritable challenges to the ones doing the investigation.

Obstacles in carrying out international investigations

• Language difficulties – there is a need for investigators to be multilingual, or else they will never get pass the offices and departments where they could access public records. In the same vein, it would prove difficult communicating with people who have to be interviewed during the verification processes. Getting the services of translators can be a solution.

• Time Zone disparities – delays in the reporting process may occur because of this

• Communication medium – some countries do not have the means of communication as sophisticated and / or trustworthy as the ones being used in the US today.

• Phone number locations for educational and employment checks

• Legalities involved – as much as possible doing the background check must stay within the lawful boundaries appropriate to both the US and foreign country.

• Costs and payments – international investigations entail more expenses

Carrying out a successful international background check involve a lengthy process. However, it is clearly an enlightening and educational adventure. The positive thing to note is that cooperation between countries makes the process less troublesome than it is supposed to be.