Guides on choosing, evaluating, and working with background screening providers, from the All Screeners team.
Tagged “ban-the-box” · Clear filter
A background check policy written to the federal floor breaks state law in California, Illinois, Colorado, and New York City. Written to the strictest state, it needlessly restricts you everywhere else. Here's the two-layer structure that actually holds up: one federal-compliant baseline, plus state-specific overlays you review on a schedule.
Choosing a ProviderIf you hire in more than a few states, the vendor question that matters most isn't price. It's whether they actually adjust for each state's rules or just run one national process and hand you the risk.
ComplianceMassachusetts doesn't run background checks through county courts. Criminal history goes through CORI, a state-run system with its own access rules, a written-policy trigger at 5 checks a year, and its own ban-the-box layer on top.
ComplianceLos Angeles employers have to satisfy the state Fair Chance Act and the city's own Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring ordinance. The local layer adds its own written assessment before you can withdraw an offer over a conviction.
ComplianceHawaii required employers to wait until after a conditional job offer to ask about criminal history starting back in 1998, years ahead of most states. Its lookback rule also treats felonies and misdemeanors differently, though the exact cutoff years are worth confirming before you build a policy on them.
ComplianceColorado's Job Application Fairness Act keeps age-revealing details, like graduation dates, off the initial job application. It's a different law from the state's criminal-record lookback rule, aimed at stopping age bias before a resume gets a fair read.
ComplianceCalifornia's Fair Chance Act sets a separate rule from the state's 7-year reporting cap: no criminal history questions before a conditional job offer, and no withdrawing that offer without an individualized assessment first. Here's how the timing rule actually works.
ComplianceNYC's Fair Chance Act has a strict order: real conditional offer first, background check second, then a specific individualized-assessment and notice process before you can pull the offer over criminal history. Here's that sequence, stage by stage.
ComplianceNo federal law bans running a background check before you make an offer, but most employers wait anyway. Here's the federal-level reasoning behind offer-then-screen, and why it holds up even where no state law requires it.
ComplianceSeven mistakes I saw over and over from first-time employers running background checks, from the disclosure form buried in an application to picking a provider on price alone, and exactly how to fix each one.
ComplianceBan-the-box and fair chance laws control when you can ask about criminal history, and the rules change by state and sometimes by city. Here is the general pattern, plus a starting reference table you should confirm with a lawyer before you rely on it.