Worried About Background Checks After HR Incident? Seeking Advice on Next Steps

HR Trial and Background Verification Concerns

One of my very close friends is undergoing an HR trial for the following incident. A party was arranged by his project (funded by the office). It was an alcoholic party, and my friend got overly drunk. There, he misbehaved with a female colleague, and she later filed an HR complaint. My friend has almost 12 years of experience and has always received a first-grade rating in every year's appraisal discussions. He has already apologized and resigned due to his own conciliation. However, he is now very scared about whether his background verification will be tarnished. He has the following specific questions:

1. Will he receive a normal relieving and experience letter, or can they hold it back?

2. What are the chances of getting a Red/Amber in the background verification process? In such a case, what can he do?

3. Prior to this organization, where he has been working for 6 years, he also worked in another big MNC for 6 years with very good track records. Is there a way to get a job with the prior 6 years of experience only? In this case, how can he justify the gap of 6 years?

Kindly help!

Thank you for sharing the concern with us. I have a few questions for your friend. Once the incident happened, and your friend realized his mistake, what corrective measures did he take? What corrective actions were taken by HR? Was he given any warnings, both written and verbal? Was any action taken against him, such as a penalty or detention? Was he offered counseling and was he put on radar after the incident? What feedback did he receive once everything settled down? Did he make amends with the lady? Did she reconcile?

These answers will determine how HR treated the incident while recording it in his file, if at all. Lastly, your friend can initiate a background verification on his own to understand what his ex-employers are saying about him. In case there is an error, he might have to make proper amends with the authorities to ensure their understanding.

Looking forward to hearing from you.