Background check after final round interview.

OP

hmm, thanks. Does a company normally take this long to perform such a check (he was told it would take two weeks for them to decide) or could they be extremely busy? I guess his anxiety is taking a toll on everyone so if I can calm him, that'd be cool. He went through 7 or 8 rounds so he's a little bit on pins and needles. Do companies conduct check for passports/grades before they give out offers?

Reply 3

Most BBs take a lot less than 2 two weeks to get back to people. Their turnaround is usually a week.

Background screening at graduate level will almost certainly require the handing over of information by him (and then him releasing consent to have data accessed).

Checking people without their consent for 'as much as you can find' is expensive and time-consuming. They certainly won't bother doing this on a graduate.

I'd call them up.

The graduation situation shouldn't make much/any difference.

Reply 4

rboogie

hmm, thanks. Does a company normally take this long to perform such a check (he was told it would take two weeks for them to decide) or could they be extremely busy? I guess his anxiety is taking a toll on everyone so if I can calm him, that'd be cool. He went through 7 or 8 rounds so he's a little bit on pins and needles.

Two weeks for a decision is a long time! A background screening usually takes 15 working days to be done 'in full' although they can be hurried significantly... depending on the demands of the client but banks don't usually sweat it too hard to get a graduate checked.

Do companies conduct check for passports/grades before they give out offers?

After. Too expensive to do before in case the person doesn't sign the contract.

Reply 5

CityMonkey

11

President_Ben

Two weeks for a decision is a long time! A background screening usually takes 15 working days to be done 'in full' although they can be hurried significantly... depending on the demands of the client but banks don't usually sweat it too hard to get a graduate checked.

After. Too expensive to do before in case the person doesn't sign the contract.

So Ben what can they ACTUALLY do if they find something you haven't said? I assume they are perfectly capable of withdrawing their offer, but what kind of things to they go through to check up on you? University records and Googling you seem the most obvious but what else?

Reply 6

el_capitan

LBC213

So Ben what can they ACTUALLY do if they find something you haven't said? I assume they are perfectly capable of withdrawing their offer, but what kind of things to they go through to check up on you? University records and Googling you seem the most obvious but what else?

I know someone who had a BB offer withdrawen because one measly date on his A-level certificates didn't match with what he put down on his application form (some issue with his name led to his AS Biology certificate to be dated Jan 2005, when infact he sat them in 2003. Confusing i know). It's stuff like this which i've heard they are quite particular about.

Reply 7

el_capitan

I know someone who had a BB offer withdrawen because one measly date on his A-level certificates didn't match with what he put down on his application form (some issue with his name led to his AS Biology certificate to be dated Jan 2005, when infact he sat them in 2003. Confusing i know). It's stuff like this which i've heard they are quite particular about.

That sounds extremely unlikely to me since that would be a minor discrepancy. Usually, you'd need to find more (and more substantial ones) to get a contract terminated - almost certainly more than one too (unless it was something huge like faking you had worked for someone or faking a professional qualfication which is needed in order to do the job)

So Ben what can they ACTUALLY do if they find something you haven't said? I assume they are perfectly capable of withdrawing their offer, but what kind of things to they go through to check up on you? University records and Googling you seem the most obvious but what else?

Get you fired/withdraw the offer. If they were anal, they could claim fraud/something civil but I've never heard of that happening.

There are databases of everything and records of lots of other things too. Googling isn't really used. Would you really trust google to make what is essentially a business decision? Would you base the reputation of what your company gives to clients based on what you can find via google? No way.

Reply 8

el_capitan

President_Ben

That sounds extremely unlikely to me since that would be a minor discrepancy. Usually, you'd need to find more (and more substantial ones) to get a contract terminated - almost certainly more than one too (unless it was something huge like faking you had worked for someone or faking a professional qualfication which is needed in order to do the job)

Get you fired/withdraw the offer. If they were anal, they could claim fraud/something civil but I've never heard of that happening.

There are databases of everything and records of lots of other things too. Googling isn't really used. Would you really trust google to make what is essentially a business decision? Would you base the reputation of what your company gives to clients based on what you can find via google? No way.

I know what you mean Ben, it didn't seem like the most plausible story to tell when he explained it to me. Maybe he's hiding something I don't know. Either way he had his contract terminated, that much I do know :smile:

Reply 9

CityMonkey

11

President_Ben

There are databases of everything and records of lots of other things too.

Lol that sounds quite freaky, databases of what kinds of things exactly? I'm a bit paranoid when people can check up on things about me that I don't know about..

Fair point on the Googling, I know they wouldn't use Google to hire you but things discovered on it could may well be used not to hire you or to fire you. I read an article recently about how companies were turning to Google to dig up nuggets of information about a potential candidate, and a few have been fired for things found on the internet.

Reply 10

Well, if it is credible - as in genuinely credible - news, then it'll probably be on the news databases like Factiva.

And databases exist for virtually everything - and someone will do the check 'for the checking group'... outsourcing certain things because they are easier done by someone else - very common with international things like doing credit checks in the USA/abroad in general.

......

TheAsianProdigy

President_Ben:

If I have claimed to work somewhere (but I didn't), and if the screening firm were to phone up that place and ask if I worked there, and the owners said 'yes', and if there weren't any tax/ni records of me at that place, would you believe I worked there? Would this be the end of the story, with regards to the screening at the very least?

Feeling guilty about something ? :wink:

Reply 13

OP

The thing is - he was told it would take two weeks at the final round - which I told them means they're busy. Could there be any reason other than background checks for them to pre-emptively say that the turnaround time would be two weeks? It just seems odd, but I think the division he has applied to is severely understaffed, and are almost too busy to tell him either way.

Reply 14

OP

hmm, I'd also add that he is expected to start in early July, which may be why they're conducting checks on him pre-emptively. I wouldn't put it past a company to check on someone without their awareness. My turnaround was instaneous as I was offered a job at my final round - so I have no experience with his situation at all.

Reply 15

TheAsianProdigy

President_Ben:

If I have claimed to work somewhere (but I didn't), and if the screening firm were to phone up that place and ask if I worked there, and the owners said 'yes', and if there weren't any tax/ni records of me at that place, would you believe I worked there? Would this be the end of the story, with regards to the screening at the very least?

If there's no record of you paying taxes but you should have, that's a bigger problem than not having some extra work experience on your application form...

...and if the place of work is some kind of small shop type thing (rather than bigger and regulated company), it may well not get checked because they don't care (which says what they think of it during the recruitment process, I suspect)

Reply 16

There won't be pre-emptive checks on a grad going through a recruitment process. There's no reason for a bank to spend hundreds of pounds on getting a check done when they don't even know if the person plans to work for them. It's not a problem at all to wait until they have signed the contract - and then do it because it's not like people (within the first couple weeks or less on a job) are doing overly sensitive things.

You'd pre-emp on someone you're about to headhunt to see if it's worth 'doing the headhunt' (which is more expensive since headhunting usually still involves, allegedly, things like being left sent packages of a grand or so with notes attached or something equally 'wow')

Reply 17

OP