MARY KEATING: Before you extend an offer, you should check your references that is an absolute must and you should look out for problems that the employees had on the job before that might be things like embezzlement or work place violence.

ROCHELLE EISENBERG: You do not ask a prior employer about a person's disability, but you can say this person have regular attendance, do this person follow work rules, would you employ this person again.

MARY KEATING: You may be tempted to go further depending on what the job is and look for more about an employee's back ground than you can find from a previous employer who may or may not want to say very much.

ROCHELLE EISENBERG: Some employers like to do background checks to see whether the employee has a problem paying of credit card because the theory being that the employee may therefore embezzle from you, may want to fudge hours of work things like that.

MARY KEATING: You can get a credit report, but only if you tell the employee that that is what you want to do. Get the employees signature and if it is negative even it leads to the negative hiring decision. Give the employee a certain disclosure and allow them to dispute what is on the credit report.

ROCHELLE EISENBERG: You want to be sure that the person you are hiring is not an ax-murderer.