DBS Checks for Applicants from Abroad
Typically, if you are an employer recruiting for a job, and you have a UK applicant you want to employ, as part of the recruitment process, you will request that they complete whatever level of DBS check is required for the job role. This DBS Check will enable you to decide whether they are the best candidate for the role, based on their past criminal history. This procedure is very simple for candidates residing in the UK. But you may wonder what you should do, if you are faced with an applicant from abroad?
Should you still carry out a DBS Check on an applicant from abroad?
If the job role that you want to appoint a candidate to, involved working with children or vulnerable adults, then it is vital to do a background check on the person. It doesn’t matter whether the person is from the UK or resides overseas, you need and have a duty to ensure that the person is safe to work with children or vulnerable adults. You want to ensure that there are no red-flags on their past history, which show that they are unsuited for this type of work and have been placed on any barred lists as a result.
What to do if the candidate has mostly lived abroad?
If a candidate has lived abroad most of their life, then a UK DBS Check isn’t really going to help you decide on their suitability for the role, because any crimes that they may have committed abroad, will not show up on the UK system. So, this won’t give you a detailed picture of their criminal past.
If you discover that the candidate has spent a significant time abroad, then you will need to collect that background information check from elsewhere.
This will take more time than a UK DBS Check, but it is essential that it is rigorously carried out, to give you peace of mind, to assess the risk that they are to children, vulnerable adults, and your business.
It will be necessary to contact authorities in the country overseas, that your applicant has lived. They will supply the past criminal record for your candidate. If the applicant has lived in the UK too, you can do a DBS check for their time in the UK and check both records to ensure the candidate is suited to the job role.
What to do if the candidate is from the UK but currently living abroad?
The UK applicant who is currently living overseas would need to apply for the DBS check in the usual way with preferably an online application but if not, then paper.
However, you need to see the applicant’s ID in person. Clearly, if you are based in the UK and they are abroad, this can be difficult to arrange face-to-face; but you can verify the ID through a video chat, such as Skype, Zoom or MS Teams etc. This ‘may’ be how you have conducted the interview.
It is entirely possible to recruit applicants from abroad, but in this scenario, you do need to allow more time to acquire all the background information for the person overseas from the relevant authorities, and you may need to check their ID online.
