Yes, you can run a background check on a candidate without hiring a screening company. No, that doesn't mean you should. A quick Google search, a free public-records site, and a couple of reference calls will get you information. What it won't get you is protection, and for a small business, that's the part that actually matters.
When people say they're doing their own background checks, they usually mean one of three things. Googling the candidate's name. Running it through one of those cheap public-records sites that promises instant results for ten bucks. Or picking up the phone and calling the references yourself.
None of that's illegal. I did versions of it myself, back when I was buying real screening services for a living, just to sanity-check a name before the official report came back. The trouble starts when DIY becomes the whole process instead of a quick side check.
Google gives you whatever's public and indexed, which for most people is basically nothing useful. A common name turns into ten wrong people. A rare name turns into old news stories that have nothing to do with this candidate. I've seen employers waste alot of time chasing a match that wasn't even the right person.
Reference calls only tell you what a friendly former boss is willing to say out loud, which these days is usually just dates of employment. That's annoying. It's not the real risk. The real risk is what happens when your "free" search turns out to be a paid one, and you didn't notice.
Here's the part almost nobody explains right. The Fair Credit Reporting Act doesn't only apply to companies that call themselves a background check company. It applies based on what the search does and who assembled it, not what it's named.
If you pay one of those people-search or data-broker sites, and you use what it gives you to help decide whether to hire someone, that search can legally count as a "consumer report." The moment it does, FCRA's rules kick in: you need the candidate's written consent before you run it, a proper disclosure, and if you turn them down partly because of it, an adverse action notice with a real process behind it. Most small businesses running a $15 people-search site have never heard of any of that. They think they're just Googling somebody with extra steps. That's how a simple hiring process turns into a mess, fast.
I'm not a lawyer, and this is exactly the kind of thing that gets small companies sued without them ever meaning to break a rule. If you're paying for any kind of records search on a candidate, ask a lawyer whether the FCRA applies to what you're buying. Don't assume "free" or "self-serve" means it's outside the law. It usually isn't.
A background check built by an accredited screening company is designed to filter out information you're not legally supposed to use in a hiring decision. Age. Marital status. Health conditions. Photos that reveal race or religion. A social media profile does the opposite. It hands you all of it, right there next to the stuff you're actually allowed to consider.
That's not a small technical detail. If you turn someone down and any of that protected information was sitting in front of you when you made the call, you've handed a rejected candidate a much easier discrimination claim, whether or not it actually influenced your decision. A compliant CRA process keeps that information out of what lands on your desk in the first place. That's most of what you're actually paying for.
| Method | What you get | What you're exposed to |
|---|---|---|
| Googling the name | Whatever's public and indexed, often the wrong person | Unverified info, protected-class details mixed in |
| Paid public-records / people-search site | Broader records, faster than Googling | Can count as a consumer report, triggering FCRA duties you may not know exist |
| Calling references yourself | Whatever a former boss is willing to say | Inconsistent, no documentation trail if it's ever challenged |
| Accredited CRA | Verified records, filtered for compliance, a documented process | You still have obligations, but the provider is built to keep you inside them |
I dont think everyone needs a screening company for everything. Checking whether a candidate's LinkedIn roughly matches their resume? Fine. Calling one reference to ask a general question before a formal offer? Also fine, so long as it's not your whole process. DIY as a sanity check is no fuss. DIY as your entire background check process is where the real risk lives.
A negligent-hiring lawsuit or an FCRA claim costs a lot more than the $20 to $80 a real background check runs. I won't put a number on that, because I don't have a real cited figure and I'm not going to pretend I do. But I watched a company I worked with spend more cleaning up after one bad hire than it would've spent screening its next fifty employees combined. That's the trade you're actually making when you skip the CRA to save a few dollars a hire.
If you're a five-person company hiring your first few employees, don't build your process around Google and a stack of phone calls. Use an accredited provider, even a cheap one, for the actual report. Save your own judgment for the interview, where it belongs. This isn't about trusting yourself less. It's about not carrying legal exposure you never agreed to take on.