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If you haven’t done it yet, now’s a good time to vet your potential hires, and for the following reasons: hiring people who have misrepresented their abilities can cost you longer training time; replacing slowpokes is costlier and more complicated than doing a routine background check; multitasking is now commonplace, but one bad hire can dent your company’s image, operations, or bank account. Background verification also helps you get more details on previous performance to forecast future performance, says Erika Balanay, assistant human resources manager of Summit Media Group. It lets you validate information disclosed by the candidate.

The need to investigate potential hires seems obvious for jobs in security and law enforcement, healthcare and childcare. But you should also consider screening job seekers who will have to interact with the public, work in customers’ homes or offices, or handle financial or other sensitive information, says Joanna Krotz, an American writer on small-business marketing and management issues, in her article You Can’t Skimp on Employee Background Checks.

While you won’t normally need to check for criminal background, at least verify information on the application form and résumé, says Margie Lacson who operates three tourist buses with her husband, Michael. Social security and tax records help confirm a person’s identity, while a National Bureau of Investigation clearance will show any criminal liabilities. The Lacsons regard the applicant’s driving record as crucial because he’ll be driving schoolchildren and local and foreign tourists.

So how do you go about making background checks? Do the following:

• Find the right informants. You normally do background checks after an interview, when you’ve gathered the applicant’s references and their contact numbers, says Balanay. The good sources of information are the applicant’s direct supervisor, former colleagues, and an HR officer who’s familiar with the person’s performance details.

• Be professional. Explain to the source your reasons for checking and guarantee that you’ll treat all information in confidence. “Handle delicate matters properly and never take anything out of context,” says Balanay. “And because the previous employer won’t get anything from the background check, make sure you get to the point quickly to avoid wasting your time and theirs.”

• Ask the right questions. Again, avoid wasting your informant’s time by asking only relevant information—those that have to do with the applicant’s performance, skills, and work attitude. Skirt questions that have nothing to do with the applicant’s qualification for the job that he or she has applied for. Balanay suggests you check on the following to make your job easier:

1. The applicant’s overall work performance. This will help you know if the applicant’s skills and work attitude match the position applied for.
2. The applicant’s supervisory style and the areas where he or she could improve. These two areas will help you bring out the best from the applicant and if he or she will thrive in your organization’s culture.
3. The applicant’s reason for leaving his former company. You’ll want to find out if the candidate had problems with his or her old boss, and if you might have the same problems once you took him or her in.
4. Would the old employer rehire the candidate? Asking hypothetical questions like this can reinforce your decision to hire or not, but you shouldn’t be completely swayed by the answer—whatever it might be. “This is only one dimension of the whole system of evaluating the applicant’s qualifications,” says Balanay.