Pre-employment background checks? Number of years?

[hh1991]

Hi what is your experience with pre-employer background checks - what is the standard practice? if they tend to check past 5 years job history ? Or is it much longer in UK, eg: 10 years?

How long does it tend to take to complete? And what happens if there is any issue, eg: job start-end dates not matching exactly?

This is for a large international US-owned corporation.

Would like to know chances of job offer retracted if data I put on cv doesn't match exactly!

Depends on the job/employer, and depends on the career history you're presenting. Some jobs/employers are nosier more diligent than others, and if you're going for a job where your 3-5yo career history has more relevance than your 1-2yo career history then they may go back further.

Why would start-end dates not match - are you trying to conceal gaps? Normally odd gaps aren't an issue so there's no need to fiddle dates, just have an answer if asked. I would make sure that the CV career history you present matches the dates on your LinkedIn profile, because that's an easy check.

Thank you for your helpful perspective! would be good to know what people's experience is like, eg if it's common practice to go back 5 years or will it be more for professional background check agencies that large employers use ....

From what I’ve seen before American firms go back forever and have ridiculous background checks that even out UK security services to shame. I’d expect delving back a long time with a US company.

If the job will involve working with vulnerable people/children or having access to significant control over finance or data security then I would expect them to go back forever.

What are you hoping to hide?

yes I'm also getting that impression, UK companies only seem to ask for 2 references!

yes I've been told 7-10 years for US

I've been contacted by them claiming that the person won't pass their checks if we can't provide records of every subject they ever studied and give a personal reference from somebody who taught them to include the precise date that they walked in the gates of the school (when it was three sites and two mergers ago) and the exact day they were processed as a leaver - in 1973.

I know I'm never bothering applying for something as vital as a job at Starbucks if I'm ever out of work. They'd need a Ouija board to find anybody who taught me.

Wow is that working in the UK, but for an american-owned company (eg; Starbucks)?