An Employer’s Guide to New Hampshire Background Checks

What Is a New Hampshire Background Check?

When looking to hire the ideal candidate in New Hampshire, first confirm that your prospective employee has all the necessary skills and qualifications to set them on the right track. Whether transferable skills or official qualifications, verifying this information helps ensure you're hiring the best person for the job.

To do this, background checks in New Hampshire search through different public records and databases and find information that can go beyond simple verifications. From criminal records to driving records to education history, background checks can provide a lot of factual information to give you a sense of a person before hiring them.

There are different ways to obtain a background check - either you can try to do it yourself or enlist the help of experts - but either way, it’s important to understand what shows up and what you need to do for the type of background check you want. 

What Shows up on a New Hampshire Background Check?

What a background check consists of is dependent on the type of background check you want to conduct. Understanding the different information that might arise helps you choose the right background check for the verification you need. Keep in mind that what's revealed will change depending on federal and state laws.

• Criminal Check - Often, employers will conduct criminal background checks to ensure that they can protect company culture and ensure that the prospective employee is the right fit for the role. If a candidate does have a criminal history, information will be shown such as felonies or misdemeanor convictions, incarceration records, and any pending criminal cases. Criminal background checks should generally be conducted in the proper, legal manner according to federal and state laws.
• Education Verification - When the role requires that a candidate has the required degree, diploma, or grades to be successful in the role, then an education verification can be really useful. An education verification will reveal the prospective employee’s academic credentials, such as college degrees, professional qualifications, and high school diplomas. It’s a process that requires contacting each educational body to confirm these details, so it can be lengthy if you choose to do this yourself. 
• Employment Verification - Employment verification is a vital step to consider when hiring a new employee to ensure that they have all the necessary qualifications and previous experience. So much of what makes a prospective employee the right fit for a role is experience. Using this check, you can get information on previous job titles, employment dates, and sometimes more in-depth details about roles and responsibilities.
• Driving Record Check - With more than 120 people getting killed in vehicle crashes every day in the US, it’s critical to conduct a driving record check if your prospective employee is going to be driving vehicles under the company’s name. It’s important for the safety of the driver and passengers, and can help prevent liability issues in the future.
• Employment Credit Check - An employment credit check isn’t always needed for every role, but where an individual will be handling company finances or for more senior roles, it can be helpful to understand an employee’s level of financial responsibility. A credit check will reveal information on a prospective employee’s credit history. However, the check doesn’t reveal a credit score and won’t affect the candidate’s credit score either. 
• Drug Testing - When it’s important to companies to maintain a drug-free workspace, there’s sometimes a call to conduct pre-employment drug testing for illicit and sometimes misuse of prescription drugs. While it does not apply to all workspaces and roles, this background check can be very useful in some contexts. 

How Far Back Do Background Checks Go in New Hampshire?

How far back a background check goes is connected to the type of background check you’re conducting and local and federal laws that might influence different information.

Background check timeframes are governed at the federal level by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). For positions paying under $75,000 annually, the FCRA limits the reporting of non-conviction records, such as civil suits, judgments, tax liens, and arrests without conviction to the past 7 years, while bankruptcies can be reported for up to 10 years. Criminal convictions, however, are not limited by federal time caps and can be reported indefinitely. For roles offering a salary of $75,000 or more, these time limits do not apply, allowing background check providers to include older non-conviction records.

Unlike federal law, New Hampshire state law restricts Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs) from reporting convictions older than 7 years unless the candidate's expected annual salary is $20,000 or more.

Likewise, the New Hampshire annulment law allows people with specific convictions to apply to get their convictions annulled. If they’re annulled successfully, then they won’t be reported regardless of when they occurred, and the prospective employee doesn’t need to disclose them when asked about previous criminal convictions.

Other information, such as past employment, education, and professional qualifications, doesn’t fall under any 7-year rule and can be reported regardless of when the background check is requested.

How Long Does a Background Check Take in New Hampshire?

How long a background check takes to obtain will entirely depend on how thorough the check is (if you’re checking more than one area at a time) and whether you choose to conduct this background yourself or enlist the help of experts. If you choose to do it yourself, this can be more time-consuming as you need to personally contact various organizations and use unfamiliar and complex databases to obtain the information that you need. All the while, ensure that you conduct the check within the legal parameters. The exact turnaround also depends on how quickly courts, schools, and previous employers respond to record requests, which can vary by jurisdiction.

That’s why ScoutLogic can help. As the employer, you need to make quick hiring decisions and get the onboarding process started without delay. ScoutLogic delivers background check package updates in under 24 hours, so you’re never left waiting weeks for the information you need to move a candidate forward. Rather than personally contacting agencies and navigating unfamiliar databases, you get a dedicated team handling the details for you.

New Hampshire Background Check Laws & Requirements

(This overview isn’t exhaustive legal advice. Employers should consult counsel to confirm compliance for their specific hiring program.)

Fair Credit Reporting Act

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is a crucial federal law that dictates how a background check should be obtained and important variations on what information can or can’t be shown. It was enacted to protect prospective individuals’ data and privacy, and ensure that the background check process is conducted fairly.

The first crucial step under this law is that an employer wanting to conduct a background check on an employee generally must gain written consent from the prospective employee granting them permission to start the background check process. The prospective employee generally must be informed of what check is going to be conducted.

Should a background check reveal negative information that could affect the candidate’s chances of being hired, then employers generally must follow the adverse action process. This is where the prospective candidate needs to receive the information that has been obtained and given the opportunity to respond to it. Skipping the adverse action step could result in costly legal battles. 

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

This federal civil rights act was enacted to prevent workplace discrimination, among other forms of discrimination. Thanks to this act, employees are protected if a background check reveals a criminal history. 

According to guidance from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, employers need to assess how the criminal background directly relates to the job role responsibilities to show how a criminal history would (or wouldn’t) affect their suitability for the role. In practice, this means employers should avoid blanket policies that automatically disqualify anyone with a criminal record. Instead, factors like the nature of the offense, how much time has passed, and how closely it relates to the job's duties should all inform the decision.

Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act (FCA)

The Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act (FCA) only applies to employers wanting federal contracts or federal agencies that have contracts with private companies. Through the FCA, federal contractors generally can’t ask about criminal history during the application process or in interviews. Only once a conditional offer has been made can they conduct criminal background checks. For candidates applying to these roles, this means their qualifications and interview performance come first, with any criminal history only entering the conversation once an offer is already on the table.

Obsolete Criminal Information

Under this local law, CRAs generally cannot report information on the following when the candidate’s dispositions occurred more than seven years before the date the background check is requested:

• Suits and judgments 
• Paid tax liens 
•  Accounts placed for collection or charged to profit and loss
• Records of arrest, indictment, or conviction of crime

For bankruptcies, this extends to a ten-year restriction period. However, this only applies to job roles with a salary under $20,000. Employers hiring for roles at $20,000 or higher can still receive information beyond the 7- or 10-year window.

That being said, under the FCRA, if any arrests didn’t result in convictions, then they won’t be reported outside of the 7-year window. 

Use of a Conviction for a Non-Annulled Crime

If a previous conviction is successfully annulled, then the prospective employee has the right to withhold that information, and their prospective employer cannot ask about non-annulled crimes. Likewise, the criminal background check will not show annulled crimes. This protection exists so that candidates who’ve successfully completed the annulment process can move forward in the hiring process without a past conviction following them indefinitely.