What you must know about background verification in MNCs

India: Multinational companies plan to hire more than 2,00,000 employees by the end of the ongoing financial year 2022-23.

It’s not a new story. MNCs practice bulk-hiring every year. But, how do they ensure that all the hired employees are legit and trustable? The answer is stringent background verification. One that involves looking into possibly everything that affects a hiring decision.

Let’s look at what a background verification process in MNCs looks like.

What is background verification in MNCs?

The BGV process in MNCs is rather slow as compared to SMEs. This is because MNCs invest more time, effort, and money in digging deep into the candidate’s background and spotting any discrepancies that might be a potential threat. 

Background verification in MNCs is as difficult to get through as their interview rounds. These companies run stringent checks on the candidates before hiring them. After all, one bad fish in the pond is enough to cause serious damage. And when we speak of an MNC’ss ‘multinational’ presence, this damage can extend to more than just one branch. 

However, MNCs don’t run these checks themselves. They partner with a trustable BGV vendor to do the job. IDfy is a trusted BGV partner to MNCs like Amazon, Zomato, Wellspun and Apollo Hospital among others.

What background verification checks do MNCs run on a candidate?

MNCs prefer to perform a list of BGV checks based on the role they’re hiring the candidate for. These checks are:

1. Identity check 

This involves verifying government authorized documents of identification. These provide details of the candidate like name, date of birth, residential address, and identity number. 

2. Education verification

The background verification vendor hired by the MNCs verifies the candidate’s degree, professional certifications, and licenses. This saves the company from hiring inept candidates who fake their educational credentials to get hired. 

3. Address verification

A candidate lying about his/her residential address might have fraudulent intentions. Hence, the background verification vendor either verifies the candidate’s address digitally or by physically visiting there. 

4. Employment verification

Here, the candidate’s past employment details are cross verified. Details like joining and leaving date, name of the past company, salary bracket, and reason for leaving are verified. 

5. Reference check 

This is about digging deeper into a candidate’s past employment (usually meant for white-collar). Here, the employer tries to understand the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, quality of work, experience, skills, and conduct at work from his/her referee. It is a crucial background verification check for MNCs hiring above entry level positions.

6. Criminal history check 

To ensure a safe work environment and company security, this background check in MNCs looks for any possible criminal records against the candidate before hiring him/her. 

7. Drug screening test

Industries like aviation run these tests to ensure that the candidate isn’t used to any chemical influence. 

8. Sexual offender registry 

Safety of every gender at work stands among top priorities for MNCs. Any record found against the candidate in this regard may result in adverse hiring decisions. 

9. Personal finances and credit check 

This enables background verification MNCs to check the candidate’s payments and default history and identify financial distress (if any). Financial distress could serve as a motivation for theft or fraud, and hence, this check is mandatory. Especially, for roles that are directly involved in the company’s finances. 

10. Social media checks 

This is a newly introduced check that is most relevant for candidates applying for higher positions at MNCs. Employees at such positions either have a direct impact on the company’s reputation or the underlying employees’ team. To avoid an adverse employment experience, MNCs prefer to check the candidate’s activities, interests, and affiliations via their social media accounts.

Background verification in MNCs in India 

The government of India has made it easier to verify candidates by putting certain practices in place. They are:

1. Aadhaar Card 

This consists of a person’s biometric, name, date of birth, and residential address. 

2. PAN Card 

Helps keep track of a person’s tax liability and transactions.

3. National Skills Registry (NSR)

A database consisting of nearly 255 companies with 18,84,380 biometrics, helps companies counter-check employees’ information, provided that they are registered on the platform. 

4. National Academics Depository (NAD)

Here candidates can store their educational documents digitally.

If you’d like to know more about how we can help companies like your run efficient BGV operations, please feel free to write to us at shivani@idfy.com.