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Candidate Screening Trio: Identity, Address, and Employment History

Published October 11, 2025 at 12:12 PM

You can't screen who you haven't verified.

And you can't verify someone if you don't know who they actually are, where they've lived, or their employment history.

That's why comprehensive screening starts with these three foundational checks. Get these three right, and you build a solid foundation for all other verification. Skip any of them, and you're building on sand.

Why Minimal Screening Isn't Enough

Some employers think checking an ID is sufficient. "We saw their driver's licence. We know who they are."

Not quite. A visual check of an ID tells you whether the ID looks legitimate and whether the person matches the photo. That's it. It doesn't tell you:

  • Whether the ID is genuine or forged
  • Where they've actually lived
  • Where they've worked and what they did there
  • Whether the person has criminal convictions
  • What name variations they might have used
  • Whether they're on sanctions or watchlists

A single ID check is better than nothing. But it's nowhere near comprehensive screening.

Identity Verification: The Foundation

Identity verification confirms that a person is real, that their claimed identity matches government records, and that they're not using fraudulent documents.

What It Includes

  • Government-issued ID authentication (detecting forgeries and alterations)
  • Biometric face matching to ID photo
  • Cross-reference with national identity databases
  • Verification of ID number, dates, and issuing authority
  • Sanctions and PEP screening

Why It Matters

If you can't confirm someone's identity, you can't trust any other information they provide. Employment history, references, education—all of it is meaningless if the identity itself is fake.

Identity fraud is unsurprisingly very common. Fraudsters use stolen identities to get jobs, access systems, and commit crimes under someone else's name. A proper identity check stops this at the door.

Address Verification: Establishing Location History

Address verification confirms where a candidate lives and has lived. This matters for several reasons:

Address History Reveals Patterns

Frequent moves with no explanation can be a red flag. Inconsistencies between claimed addresses and actual residence raise questions. Address verification helps spot these patterns.

Fraud Prevention

Fraudsters often provide fake addresses to avoid detection. Address verification confirms the person actually lives (or lived) where they claim, making it harder to hide their history.

Addresses Help Criminal Record Searches

Criminal records are stored by jurisdiction. To make the search fully effective, you need to know where someone has lived so you can search the right databases. If they claim to have lived only in Kingston but actually spent three years in Montego Bay or New York, we may miss some local records that may have been adverse., or it may mean we have to do more work to find out their addresses.

What It Includes

  • GPS verification of location
  • Photo and video evidence, with corroboration with satellite imagery
  • Verification through proof of address documents and government databases
  • Confirmation of current and previous addresses
  • Timeline of residence at each location
  • Cross-reference with employment and reference locations

Employment History Verification

Nothing beats feedback and insights from previous employers of your candidate, who are by and large truthful, but always truthful when the encounters were less than desirable.

Cleared™ makes employment history verification easy for both recruiter and candidate. The candidate simply uploads their resume, the app extracts the details, and the verification process begins. At the end, the recruiter receives a report that details the candidate's history, and shows the feedback from the previous employers. The process is investigative, well-documented, and uses a rigorous quality system that ensures that the output is accurate and useful.

What It Includes

  • Point to point check of entire working history timeline
  • Verification of the company where previous employment was claimed
  • Verification of existence of employment at the company
  • Verification of claims regarding what duties were performed
  • Salary scale
  • Reason for leaving

Criminal Background Checks: A Fourth Safety Layer

This is the check some employers forget, but to their detriment. Criminal background checks reveal whether a candidate has convictions that make them unsuitable for the position.

What It Includes

  • Local criminal records (parish-level or city-level searches)
  • National criminal records
  • International criminal records
  • Pending criminal charges
  • Court cases
  • Watchlist and sanctions screening

You can't just search one database and call it done. A candidate might have a clean record nationally but convictions at the local level. Or they might have international issues that won't show up in Jamaican databases.

Comprehensive criminal screening searches across jurisdictions to build a complete picture.

What You're Looking For

Not every criminal conviction disqualifies a candidate. Context matters:

  • Nature of the offense (violent crime vs. minor infraction)
  • Relevance to the position (financial fraud matters for accounting roles; less so for warehouse positions)
  • Time elapsed since conviction
  • Evidence of rehabilitation

But you need to know about convictions to make informed decisions. That requires thorough searching.

Why All Checks Work Together

Think of these checks as a triangle (or a square if you include the 4th one). Each point supports the others:

  • Identity enables address verification, because you need confirmed identity to verify addresses accurately.
  • Address enables employment verification, because you need address history to trace and validate workplaces.
  • Employment enables criminal checks, because work timelines and locations provide the context for accurate criminal record searches.
  • Criminal checks validate identity, address, and employment, because inconsistencies across records expose fraud.

Skip one corner and the whole structure weakens.

The Real-World Impact

A BPO company in Jamaica made it policy to run all three checks on every employee—from agents to QA, to managers and senior managers. Within the first 2 years:

  • Identity verification caught 3 people using fake IDs
  • Address verification revealed 8 candidates who lied about where they lived to get the job, and were caught when it was time to negotiate transportation
  • Criminal checks flagged 6 people with undisclosed convictions, including 2 for theft

That's 17 problem hires prevented before they could do damage. The company's investment in screening was less than they would have lost from a single theft incident.

Building Your Screening Protocol

  • Start with the core trio for every position, then add additional checks based on role requirements:
  • Entry-Level Positions: Identity + Address + Employment History
  • Mid-Level Positions: Core trio + Reference + Qualifications + Criminal History
  • Senior/Sensitive Positions: Core trio + Reference + Qualifications + Criminal History + Sanctions Screening

You can't make good hiring decisions with incomplete information. The core trio gives you the foundation you need to hire with confidence.

Cleared™ makes comprehensive screening simple with our core verification services: identity checks, address verification, and criminal background searches across Jamaica and internationally. We search local and national databases to give you the complete picture, covering almost 350 sources globally.

Start screening your candidates and build a foundation of verified, trustworthy hires.