We had an employee at the company where I work that turned out to be selling drugs, and apparently sometimes using the phone at his desk to take orders. As a result there’s been a bit of a panic in the company, and we’re talking about doing background checks on potential employees. Personally I would have never hired the guy that caused the problem in the first place, and I don’t think we needed his legal history to tell he wasn’t a good fit for the company, but I figure if we’re going to do it, I’d be better off getting involved and making sure we keep the process as confidential and unobtrusive as possible.
Does anyone know of a good service for running background checks, preferably fast, cheap, and web-based? What kind of info do we need on the applicant? I assume we need them to agree to this in writing. Is there a template for how that agreement should read? Do we need to get lawyers involved? Anything else I’m missing?