Pennsylvania Background Checks

Pennsylvania offers a deep talent pool for employers ranging from healthcare and education to finance, logistics, and manufacturing. But identifying candidates who meet your qualifications and uphold your organization’s standards requires more than just reviewing applications and conducting interviews. Pennsylvania background checks are an essential part of a thorough hiring process, helping you make well-informed decisions and minimize potential risks.

At Accurate, our background screening services go beyond surface-level verification. We provide a comprehensive view of a candidate’s past, verifying identity, checking criminal records, confirming educational credentials and professional licenses, and contacting past employers as needed. With these well-rounded insights, you can more effectively assess whether a candidate is a good fit for your company’s culture and requirements.

Each industry comes with its own hiring standards and compliance considerations, which is why our background checks are fully customizable. Whether you’re hiring for a classroom, a hospital, a trucking company, or a corporate office, Accurate will help you create a more reliable screening process and tailor it to your specific industry rules and regulations, as well as individual roles and their risk exposure.

Pennsylvania employers structure their background checks to meet the specific needs of each role. The most common components of a background check for employment purposes in Pennsylvania include:

• AccurateReach: which is a tips and leads search that provides a national database search to help uncover more records than solely a search based on the candidate’s address history Criminal Background Check Services, including County, state, and federal criminal searches
• Employment history
• Education verification, including verifications of credentials and other certifications
• Professional license verification
• Motor vehicle driving history
• Sex offender registry search
• Government and healthcare sanctions

Accurate can also obtain the candidate’s professional references on the employer’s behalf.

When conducting background checks in Pennsylvania, employers should be aware of state and local regulations that may affect both the timing and use of screening information. While Accurate provides resources and best practices for employers to review, Accurate is not providing legal recommendations. So it is important for HR professionals’ and hiring managers to understand legislation concerning Pennsylvania background checks.

Some relevant Pennsylvania regulations include:

• Ban the Box: While the State of Pennsylvania does not currently have a “Fair Chance” or “Ban-the-Box” law, Lehigh County, Chester County and Philadelphia have local laws in which employers may not inquire about criminal history on the initial job application, but must wait until after the first interview and after a conditional offer is made, respectively. Additionally, in Philadelphia, if potentially disqualifying criminal history is found, employers must conduct an individualized assessment considering factors like the nature and timing of the offense and the applicant’s work history, as well as allow 10 business day for the applicant to respond or provide additional information.
• Use of Criminal Records: Pennsylvania prohibits employers from making blanket exclusions based on an applicant’s criminal history. Instead, they must evaluate whether a conviction is directly related to the job and if it would affect the applicant’s ability to perform the duties of the role.
• Philadelphia also prohibits employers from considering conviction information beyond a 7 year period (excluding periods of incarceration), any convictions that have been exonerated, or arrests or accusations that are not currently pending.

Understanding these regulations will help you ensure your background screening process is effective and minimize compliance risk.

Note: This list is not an exhaustive list of employer laws and is meant to provide employers with the most common laws employers should consider in Pennsylvania.

Hiring is high-stakes — so it demands the highest attention to detail. Accurate performs comprehensive checks with industry-leading speed and 99.9% accuracy, so you can minimize your risk without sacrificing efficiency. Our mobile-first technology and 24/7/363 customer support puts screening in your candidates’ hands and helps get them on the job more quickly.

Accurate also gives you compliance support to navigate changing background screening laws. We maintain a global team of compliance experts and provide a platform custom-built for compliance, including jurisdiction-specific forms and a built-in automated adjudication tool. When regulations change, we help you stay compliant.

Ready for faster, more efficient background screening? Contact Accurate today for background screening you can count on.