Proper background screening necessarily punctuates the recruiting process at its most critical juncture, the moment of hire. According to new research from the HRfocus Background Screening Survey 2007, companies continue to understand this fact in ever-greater numbers. More than 85%, no matter their size, conduct criminal background checks of new hires, and only 3% of companies employing 1,000 or more conduct no background screening during the hiring process.

In light of the following, all-too-possible scenario, those numbers are not all that surprising.

In a harried quest for a new controller to replace one who has abruptly departed, a company turns to its recruiters, who source and vet a number of candidates in short order. After narrowing the field to three highly qualified prospects, hiring managers make their choice and are quite happy. The new employee signs a contract, completes all necessary paperwork, and begins to tackle work that has accumulated in the meantime.

Two months later, a co-worker in the accounts payable department discovers fraudulent charges on the corporate credit card statement and reports the crime. The ensuing investigation reveals that her new colleague is not only the culprit, but has a criminal history of committing credit card fraud. Hired in haste—and in the absence of a criminal background check—the formerly ideal new controller turns out to be anything but.

Variants of the scenario described above are common. A proper background screening easily could have spared this hypothetical company the aggravation of a criminal investigation, not to mention the frustration of having to go through the hiring process twice in as many months for the same position.

In his 2004 book titled Sleuthing 101: Background Checks and The Law, published by Kennedy Information, Kroll Inc.'s Barry Nadell states that employee theft is a $400 billion industry. A survey by Careerbuilder.com of 2,200 workers last year found 38% of the more than 1,000 hiring managers included in the sample reporting that they had fired employees for office theft. While its related report, titled Office Kleptomania, ranked office supplies as the stolen items most commonly cited for reprimanding (15%), money, at 14%, was a close second.

Furthermore, thefts by unscrupulous employees aren't the only problem; so is violent crime. The Occupational Health & Safety Association reports that two million Americans are victims of workplace violence each year, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2005 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) shows that much of the 1990s through the mid 2000s saw an average of 807 workplace homicides annually.

A bad hire can sully the integrity of any hiring system no matter how well thought out, efficient, and effective that system is, but thorough background screening goes a long way to filter out new hires whose otherwise unknown criminal records might add your company to these statistics' rosters. After all, the otherwise stellar hiring process that any effective recruiter builds suffers a serious blow whenever a new hire is subsequently "unhired" because word surfaces that he or she has a criminal record.

(To hear more from Brent Skinner, recruiting research director for Kennedy Information, be sure to sign up for his upcoming Interactive Seminar Series, which will focus on issues affecting the executive search industry. "Compensation in Executive Search," the first installment, takes place on Tuesday, July 17th, at 1 p.m. EST.)