Important: The information in this article is intended for general guidance for employers and hiring professionals. It is not legal advice, and organizations should consult their legal or compliance advisors when developing hiring or background screening policies. If you are an individual looking to obtain a background check on yourself or inquire about a background report, please contact the screening provider that performed the report or the employer who requested it. Justifacts provides screening services for employers and does not process personal background check requests through this website.
A background check is usually a set of separate checks, each pulling from a different source and answering a different question. The types of background checks you choose decide what the report can actually tell you about a candidate.
That's where a lot of hiring teams get stuck, because what leadership calls "running a background check" is really several decisions in one. A criminal search, an employment verification, a drug test, and a motor vehicle record are four different products with four different rules. Pick too few and you miss risk that mattered to the role. Pick too many and you slow the hire and gather information you shouldn't use in the decision.
This guide walks through the main types of background checks for employment, what each covers, and how to decide which ones a given role calls for. It's written for HR, recruiting, and compliance teams at organizations of 5,000 employees or fewer.
Quick Answer
The main types of background checks fall into a few groups: identity and criminal history checks, verifications of what a candidate claimed (employment, education, credentials, references), and role-based or situational checks such as driving records, drug testing, credit history, and international searches. A separate group of ongoing checks keeps screening current after the hire. Most employers build a package by role, matching the checks to the risks the job carries rather than running every check on everyone.
Table of Contents
- What Are the Main Types of Background Checks?
- Start with Identity and Criminal Record Checks
- Verify Employment, Education, and Credentials
- Add Driving, Drug, Credit, and Situational Checks
- Screen for Ongoing Risk After the Hire
- How to Choose Which Types of Background Checks to Run
- Know What Each Type Can Report
- Why Work with Justifacts?
What Are the Main Types of Background Checks?
Most employment background checks are built from four kinds of checks: identity and criminal history, verifications, role-based or situational checks, and ongoing checks that run after someone is hired.
These groups map to the decisions you make. Identity and criminal checks anchor almost every screen. Verifications confirm the claims on a resume. Role-based checks get added when the job creates a specific risk, like driving a company vehicle or handling money. Ongoing checks apply when risk doesn't end on the start date. One distinction runs underneath all of them: a check either looks for a negative record or confirms a fact, and that difference decides how far back a screening company can report what it finds.
Start with Identity and Criminal Record Checks
Nearly every background check starts by confirming who the candidate is, then searching for a criminal history under that identity.
Identity and SSN verification
Identity comes first because it decides whether everything after it is any good. A Social Security number trace returns the names and addresses tied to a candidate's SSN, which tells the screening company which counties to search and surfaces names left off the application. Identity verification also catches borrowed or fabricated identities in remote hiring. Skip it, and a criminal search is only as complete as the address history the candidate chose to share.
Criminal record checks
Criminal record checks are the piece most people picture, and they run at more than one level because no single database holds everything. County courts hold most cases and tend to be the most current, state repositories widen the net, and federal district court searches catch offenses prosecuted federally, such as wire fraud, that never appear in a county index. A sex offender registry check runs against state and national registries. Good criminal record checks confirm each hit belongs to your candidate rather than to someone with a similar name, the step instant database sites skip. When relevant to a role, court records can also include civil cases like judgments.
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Verify Employment, Education, and Credentials
Verifications answer a different question from criminal checks: they confirm whether what a candidate told you is true, rather than searching for a negative record.
That distinction has a consequence worth knowing now and covered fully below. Confirming that something happened isn't adverse information, so verifications don't carry the reporting time limits that apply to negative records. Employers set their own window instead, commonly the last 7 to 10 years of work history, as policy rather than law.
Employment and education verification
Employment verification confirms where a candidate worked, in what role, and for what dates, by contacting former employers or the verification service they use. This is where resume padding surfaces. Education verification confirms degrees and enrollment with the school or a degree clearinghouse, catching both the invented degree and the real degree from a diploma mill.
Professional license verification
Professional license verification confirms that a required credential is current, valid, and in good standing with the issuing board, which matters where a license is legally required to do the work, like nursing or accounting. Confirming that a license is active is a separate thing from reporting past discipline against it, and the two follow different rules. Reference checks and a resume review round out the group, adding context and flagging inconsistencies before an offer.
Add Driving, Drug, Credit, and Situational Checks
Beyond the core, employers add checks that fit the specific job or hiring situation rather than running them across the board.
Motor vehicle records (MVR)
Motor vehicle records apply to any role that puts an employee behind the wheel. An MVR check pulls from the state driver licensing agency and shows license status, class and endorsements, moving violations, and administrative actions such as suspensions or revocations. Because driving records change fast, fleet employers often pair a one-time MVR with ongoing monitoring.
Drug and health screening
Drug and health screening runs through certified collection sites and laboratories, the one check that requires the candidate to show up somewhere. Employers choose the panel, most often a 5-panel or 10-panel test, and a medical review officer confirms any positive before it's reported. Testing programs carry federal and state rules that vary by industry and location.
Credit history
Credit history checks apply to a narrow set of roles involving money or sensitive financial access, like a controller or someone handling cash. An employment credit check shows accounts, payment history, and public financial records, though not a credit score. Several states restrict or prohibit credit checks in hiring, so confirm this one against state law first.
International background checks
International background checks apply when a candidate has lived, worked, or studied outside the United States. What's available varies widely by country and can include international criminal records, global watchlist and sanctions screening, and verification of foreign employment or education.
I-9 and E-Verify
I-9 and E-Verify sit slightly apart: they confirm work authorization rather than screen for risk, and they apply to every new hire. The I-9 documents eligibility to work in the United States, and E-Verify checks that information against federal records.
Screen for Ongoing Risk After the Hire
A background check captures a moment in time, so for roles where risk continues past the start date, employers keep screening on a recurring basis.
The logic is simple: a candidate who was clean at hire can pick up a disqualifying record later, and a pre-hire check will never show it. Ongoing criminal record checks re-run searches on a schedule or flag new records as they appear. MVR monitoring watches driving records for new violations or a suspension, which is why it's common for fleets and commercial drivers. Random and post-accident drug testing keeps a testing program active across the workforce. Ongoing screening carries the same consent and compliance obligations as a pre-hire check, so set it up deliberately rather than switching it on quietly.
How to Choose Which Types of Background Checks to Run
The types of background checks a role calls for come down to the risks that role carries, applied consistently to every candidate for the same job.
Start with role-based packages.
A warehouse associate, a bookkeeper, and a home-health aide face different risks, and matching the searches to the risk keeps you from over-screening one role and under-screening another. Most employers define a standard package per role, then order it the same way every time, which keeps screening consistent enough to defend later.
Regulated roles need extra care in how you reason about them.
Employers in transportation, healthcare, and financial services carry their own requirements about which checks they have to run, set by regulators. Those are obligations to check, and they're separate from the rules about how far back a screening company can report what a check turns up. A DOT-regulated driver is the clearest case: federal rules call for an inquiry into the preceding 3 years of driving history, a shorter window than the general reporting limit, not a longer one.
Timing matters too.
Most employers run the check after a conditional offer, which keeps ban-the-box rules manageable. Apply the same package to every candidate for a role, because inconsistency between candidates is where discrimination claims start.
Know What Each Type Can Report
Two rules govern every type of background check: each needs the candidate's consent before it runs, and each has its own limit on how far back a screening company can report what it finds.
Consent is the simpler one. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires a clear, standalone written disclosure that the employer intends to obtain a consumer report, plus the candidate's written authorization, before any check is ordered. That applies to every check in this guide, from the criminal search to a simple employment verification.
The reporting limits are where the types diverge, and the dividing line is whether a record is a criminal conviction. Criminal convictions are the one adverse category with no federal reporting time limit. FCRA Section 605(a)(5) caps every other adverse item at 7 years, and that catch-all is broad. It covers arrests that didn't lead to a conviction, civil judgments, driving violations, administrative actions such as license suspensions, disciplinary actions against a professional license, and older sanctions. A driving violation and a license suspension both fall under the 7-year limit because neither is a criminal conviction.
A few types deserve a specific note:
- Motor vehicle records carry two clocks at once. A moving violation or an administrative action like a suspension is a 7-year item, while a DUI that resulted in a criminal conviction has no federal limit because it's a conviction.
- Sanctions and exclusions turn on whether they're still in effect. One that's currently active can be reported while it lasts, while a sanction that ended more than 7 years ago falls outside the reporting window.
- Professional license discipline is capped at 7 years, even though confirming the license's current status carries no limit. Verifying that a credential is active and reporting a decade-old disciplinary action are two different things.
- Verifications of employment and education carry no reporting limit, because confirming a fact isn't adverse information.
The clock runs from the date on the record, not the date you order the check, which is the detail hiring teams get backwards most often. State law then sits on top as a stricter floor: roughly a dozen states cap criminal convictions at 7 years regardless of the federal rule, and several limit or prohibit employment credit checks. These statutes change and vary by location, so employers should confirm current requirements with their screening provider and legal counsel. Our guide on how far back a background check goes covers these windows in more depth, and our compliance resources go further on employer obligations.
Why Work with Justifacts?
Choosing which types of background checks to run, and running them in a way that holds up, is easier with a screening partner who does it every day.
Justifacts has screened for employers since 1982, one of the oldest dedicated background screening companies in the country. We're family-led, based outside Pittsburgh, and we work nationwide with a focus on organizations of 5,000 employees or fewer. Many of our managers have been here 10 to 20 years, so clients get a named contact who knows their packages, and compliance guidance from people who've watched screening law change over decades. Because we built our own platform, we can shape packages and integrations around how your team hires. For an employer weighing the many types of background checks, that adds up to:
- Role-based packages you configure once and order in a click
- Direct court searches rather than database-only results, with each hit confirmed to your candidate
- The full range of checks in one place: criminal, verifications, MVR, drug testing, credit, international, and I-9
- Consent, authorization, and adverse action workflow built in
- Ongoing and post-hire screening, plus PBSA accreditation and the data security behind it
Learn More About Our Screening Services
Key Takeaways
- The main types of background checks group into identity and criminal history, verifications of a candidate's claims, role-based or situational checks like MVR and drug testing, and ongoing checks after hire.
- No candidate needs every check. Employers build a package by role, match the searches to the risk, and apply it consistently to every candidate for that role.
- Every type of check requires the candidate's written consent before it runs, under the FCRA.
- Criminal convictions carry no federal reporting time limit. Every other adverse item, including driving violations, license suspensions, professional license discipline, and older sanctions, is capped at 7 years from the date of the record under FCRA Section 605(a)(5), and some states are stricter.
- Verifications of employment and education carry no reporting limit, because confirming a fact isn't adverse information.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the most common types of background checks for employment?
The most common types of background checks for employment are criminal record checks, identity and SSN verification, and employment and education verification. Many employers add motor vehicle records, drug testing, and credit checks for roles where those risks apply, combining several into one package matched to the job.
How many types of background checks are there?
There's no fixed number, because a background check is really a set of separate searches an employer can combine. It helps to think in groups: identity and criminal history checks, verifications of a candidate's claims, role-based checks such as driving records and drug testing, and ongoing checks that run after hire.
What's the difference between a criminal background check and an employment verification?
A criminal background check searches court and registry records for a criminal history, which is adverse information subject to reporting time limits. An employment verification confirms where a candidate worked, in what role, and for what dates, a factual confirmation that carries no reporting limit. One looks for a record; the other confirms a claim.
Which types of background checks does my organization actually need?
That depends on the role. Match the checks to the risks the job carries: criminal and identity checks for nearly any role, verifications where credentials or work history matter, and situational checks like an MVR for drivers or a credit check for financial roles. A screening provider can help you build a standard package per role.
Do different types of background checks have different lookback periods?
Yes. Criminal convictions have no federal reporting time limit, while most other adverse records, including driving violations, license suspensions, and civil judgments, are limited to 7 years from the date of the record under the FCRA. Verifications of employment and education carry no limit, and some states set stricter caps than federal law.
Final Thoughts
The practical takeaway is simple: screening is a set of choices, and the right ones come from the role in front of you rather than from a one-size package or the cheapest bundle on offer.
Get that matching right and screening becomes a routine, defensible step in hiring. If you're setting up screening for the first time, or rethinking which checks your roles really need, we're glad to walk through what a package would look like for the jobs you hire for.