In This Episode
So you’re all excited because that new employee you’ve been searching for has finally accepted your offer. Now all you need to do is finish up the paperwork and complete a background check and they will be on the job before the end of the month! And then the background check comes back with a black mark. What should you do?
First, take a breath. It often helps to pause and reflect before reacting. You’re probably feeling disappointed, frustrated, even angry or desperate. As you enter this emotionally charged state your judgement can quickly become impaired. It can become akin to the five stages of grief model introduced by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying:
- Denial: maybe they pulled the wrong report and it’s someone else with the same name.
- Anger: why didn’t she tell me we might find something on her background check?
- Bargaining: it was probably a misunderstanding or a mistake she made when she was younger and has learned from it.
- Depression: what are we going to do now? We’re never going to find anyone to fill this role.
- Acceptance: well I guess it’s a good thing we found out about this before she joined and created other issues for our team.
So if you’ve ever had something like this happen in your business, today’s show is for you. We shared several stories of what can happen when a candidate receives a negative mark on their background check and how others have approached it. There’s no one right way to handle these situations. You’ll want to take into account things like the culture of your organization, your Leadership style, and how your customers might respond, just to name a few. Take some comfort in knowing you’re not the only person this has happened to and there is a path forward!
People, Companies and Resources We Mentioned in the Show
- Five Stages of Grief Model by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stages_of_grief)
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