I signed my offer and am now going through the HireRight background check. Do they check past employment exact dates? I may have stretched a few months on my resume to fill in gaps. How far back do they want? I've been working for over 20 years and some of the companies are out of business.
They check against what you put into hireright, not what you put on your resume I believe. And yeah they check exact dates. You only need to fill in the month and year though. They ask you for your current / most recent and then give you the option to add previous positions, but never explicitly say how much of your work history you need to provide, so I don't think you necessarily have to put your full history.
Thanks, I think I'm going to contact my previous employer myself to get the exact dates. I've seen from googling and also from this document on their own website that they only go back 7 years. https://www.hireright.com/assets/uploads/services/files/HireRight_Employment_Verification_Product_Brief_2013.pdf Probably a good idea to try to find W2's myself also.
Yeah it's definitely good to provide as many W2's up front as possible.
They'll also call references if you provide a supervisor contact. Especially useful if company doesn't exist and you can't find documents. Just upload contact info as a file. Your other option is to request tax history from the IRS, assuming this is US. Takes a while, but it's the federal version of an all in one W-2. You can also call HR to clarify any discrepancies you expect. Corporate HR is much more approachable than anyone at HireRight, since they don't have a mandate to not talk to you. I tried calling HireRight, and all they did was parrot that they can't discuss the process and that I need to send in verification documents. Called the company I was being checked for instead, and HR answered all the things I was worried about.
Thanks, this is super helpful.
I just went through this and had multiple companies on my resume that no longer exist. For those, they took W2 and first/last paystub as proof of rough start/end dates. Thankfully I had those saved somewhere. For employers that are still in business, they were able to get exact dates, not just the month.
All companies I've heard of have a 1-3 month (depends on company) date discrepancy that's allowed, so failing an exact date check doesn't matter
I also read through HireRight's product brief and it seems to confirm this also. Here is the exact text in case it's useful to anybody else. HireRight Employment Verification HireRight Employment Verification Plus Action Major date discrepancy Two (2) years or more Six (6) months or more Applicant is contacted for clarification, unless a client’s guidelines state otherwise. If applicant does not respond or is unable to provide clarification, request will be closed as “Complete – Discrepancy”. Major employment history discrepancy Employment history reported by the applicant cannot be verified with the employer Minor date discrepancy More than three (3) months but less than two (2) years More than three (3) months but less than six (6) months Applicant will not be contacted for clarification and request will be closed as “Complete – Discrepancy”. Minor salary or job title discrepancy More than $1,500 annual salary, $125 monthly, $60 biweekly, $30 weekly or $0.75 hourly, or a job title that is not equivalent to what was provided by the applicant Copyright © 2013 HireRight, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form without prior written permission is prohibited. Results Based on its research, HireRight will report on the background report the following results described below: Result Definition Complete – Data Verified Employment history reported by the verifying party was consistent with the applicant’s submitted information. Complete - Discrepancy Employment history reported by the verifying party was inconsistent with the applicant’s submitted information (see table in “Process” section) or no records were found. Close – No Data Returned Employment history could not be verified because neither the verifying party nor the applicant (if applicable) provided any information prior to the verification close date. Closed – Not Verified per Client Guidelines Employment history was not verified due to client-specific or HireRight general guidelines, e.g., if the information provided is more than 7 years, or when a client instructs
Do you redact the numbers on W2 to hide salary information?
Run a report on yourself at “The Work Number” to see what companies can auto-pull on your background specifically former employment. You can see exact dates and job titles. This will help you moving forward!
It is company specific. For me, it was specifically mentioned “ Provide your current or most recent employer details”
Do they check title as well? I mean is there a way for them to find out if I am senior or staff?
My experience with hire right they are lazy sacks of crap. First google is only going to have them check x years back if they’re checking employment history. They’ll ask you quickly to upload documentation for employment verification such as w2 or paystubs
Can confirm they are indeed lazy sacks of crap. they won't bother to even contact the HR department at a company, even if you provide the contact info. And they only seem to take W2's or 1099. any other kind of documentation, they will probably ignore, even if it's valid and legal.