For the most part, talk of pre-employment screening focuses on the potential damage that such checks can help companies dodge. It's important to remember, however, that there's another type of benefit that comes from conscientious background searches. By checking with an applicant's past employers, landlords, creditors, and various character references, you can also ensure that you're hiring a productive and reliable worker.

So often employers count as successes any hires that don't lead to complaints, controversies, and crimes. But what about learning in advance that the worker you're considering was responsible for a 25 percent gain in productivity or, better still, profitability? Why wouldn't you know about these achievements merely by reading over your applicant's resume? There are a couple of possible reasons.

Pre-Employment Screening Fills in the Gaps

Believe it or not, many employees are squeamish about touting their past achievements for fear of sounding boastful or being caught in a fabrication. As a result, without some form of pre-employment screening, you may never know that your current applicant helped design a revolutionary order-tracking system or database at his or her past job. To the worker, this might have seemed like a small contribution, one which only his or her employer--who saw the monetary rewards of its implementation--could truly appreciate.

Second, and perhaps more unbelievably, many job-seekers these days simply don't know how to present a strong resume. Rather than risk flubbing their style, spelling, or grammar, they keep their resumes as short and to-the-point as possible. Consequently, it often takes pre-employment screening to discover a great value or a diamond in the rough.