Employee Verification

Pre-employment checks are essential for ensuring personnel security. They minimize the risk of a trusted individual harming your business.

Pre-employment checks enable you to:

• Verify the identity, eligibility, suitability, and capability of a potential recruit
• Uncover any undisclosed or misrepresented information.

At Knighthood, we assist with pre-employment checks for all applicants, including existing employees changing roles, contractors, short-term staff, and secondees. We strongly advise against omitting pre-employment checks due to a person’s experience or rank.

Conduct Appropriate Pre-Employment Checks

The three primary types of pre-employment checks are:

• Baseline checks that must be done for all roles
• Optional checks that should be used when elevated security risks are identified
• Mandatory checks specific to the role being hired

Certain organizations may have additional baseline checks due to the nature of their work. For instance, Police verification is necessary for all security positions in organizations.

Base Line Checks

You must perform the following pre-employment checks for each person:

• Verify their identity
• Confirm their nationality
• Verify their right to work in India
• Check their references with their previous employer
• Do a criminal record check.

We provide copies of all checks and handle data in accordance with our privacy policy, as detailed below.

Confirming Identity

We verify that people are who they claim to be. To confirm someone's identity, we request a copy of an original document. These documents may include:

• Aadhaar
• PAN
• Passport
• Birth certificate
• Other, as per company policy

We take into account that:

• Some people may have an alias (e.g. a previous family name)
• Some people may be known by another first name
• Naming conventions vary between cultures.

If we find unexplained discrepancies in someone's identity documents, we report back to the customer for further clarification.

Right to Work

We ensure Indian citizenship or the necessary visa to work in India.

Prior Employer Reference

Past performance and behavior are reliable indicators of future performance and behavior, so we carefully review references to:

• Verify an applicant's assertions
• Gain insight into their character.

Prior to conducting a reference check, we ensure that the referees are:

• Recent (from their previous employer).
• Suitable for the role (we also verify the employer's name in the CV).
• Legitimate (we may consult our customer HR team).
• Free from any conflicts of interest (e.g. being in a close personal relationship with the applicant).

We take meticulous notes from any verbal checks, such as phone conversations.

If our customer has reservations after verifying references, we suggest additional pre-employment checks.

Police Verification

Police verification is used to identify any criminal convictions that may make a person unsuitable for a role, as well as any measures that customers may need to put in place to manage risk if the person is recruited. We always obtain written consent from the individual before proceeding with a police verification check. If customers are concerned about the outcome of a criminal record check, they may opt for additional pre-employment checks to gain a better understanding of the individual's reliability and suitability for the role.

Warning Signs

Factors that on their own, or together, may raise concerns about a person’s integrity and suitability to work in your organisation, include:

• any current involvement with criminal activity
• withholding information about criminal convictions not covered by the Criminal Records
• false statements in a CV or job application form
• false claims about qualifications or achievements
• unexplained gaps in the applicant’s employment or residential history
• adverse character references
• conflicts of interest
• evasive behaviour when asked to verify information they have provided
• evasive behaviour or a refusal when asked to supply references or give consent for criminal record checks or credit checks.
• social media presence.

Optional Checks

When a role or the nature of your organization's work involves an increased security risk, additional checks may be necessary. For example, if an IT administrator has broad access to your organization's information, you may want to take extra steps to ensure that they are trustworthy.

The specific additional checks required will depend on various factors, including your organization's security context and culture, as well as the operating environment.

Qualification check

We conduct a qualification check to help our customers verify the legitimacy of educational qualifications, professional body memberships, or practicing certificates listed in a CV. If a qualification is critical to the role, we strongly recommend making this check mandatory to avoid any potential harm.

To ensure accuracy, we always ask to see original documents rather than copies. If we have doubts about the authenticity of the documents, we consider contacting the educational institute or professional body to verify the qualification.

When it comes to university qualifications, we initiate an enquiry with the university to confirm the qualifications claimed by the candidate.

For checking overseas qualifications, we follow a rigorous process to validate the authenticity of the institute and verify whether the qualifications provided are genuine or not.

Credit check

A credit check is a commercial check of public records associated with the applicant's financial history and any associations with businesses.

We recommend a credit check if the role carries a significant financial risk or if the person will have a financial delegation. However, before conducting a credit check, we need to obtain the individual's consent.

Please note that the results of credit checks can be subjective. To ensure accuracy, we always make sure to have an experienced person review the results.

Consultation

Based on our report, if you have any concerns arising from pre-employment checks, we recommend that you take the following steps:

• Assess how the identified risks are likely to affect the role that the person may be employed for.
• Determine whether you can reduce the risks to an acceptable and manageable level.

Example scenarios

Qualification

You can’t verify a qualification that is essential to a role, so you decide the risk is too great and rule that person out.

Credit Check

A credit check may reveal a small debt from many years ago, but if the role does not involve managing finances, and assuming that the outcome of other checks is satisfactory, it may be deemed safe to hire the person.

Verification Record

We maintain a detailed record of the following:

• Concerns identified during pre-employment checks.
• Risk assessments that we carry out.
• Decisions you can make to reduce or manage identified risks.

Risk Management Plan

In the event that a person with identified risks is employed, we collaborate with you to develop an individualized risk management plan. This plan can be used to support the person in their role, manage risks, and maintain your organization's security.

Data Privacy

We always obtain the applicant's consent before conducting any pre-employment checks. All personal information we gather during the check is shared with the customer and is deleted three months after the submission of our report. During this three-month period, we do not share any data with any agency or use it for internal purposes.

After three months, we only maintain data in aggregate form with no personal identifiers retained. The data we hold includes the applicant's age, sex, permanent location (pin code only), role (junior, mid, or senior), work experience, and prior industry.

We inform both the company and the applicant how we will use the information that is retained. If any candidate is not comfortable with certain data we retain, they can request in writing for us to remove that data from our database. We will revert back within 7 working days confirming the removal.