One extremely useful facet of using employment applications in hiring is
the ability of the employer to directly ask an applicant if he or she has
a criminal history that would show up if a thorough background check was
conducted. Yet, to their detriment, many employers use language that is
either too narrow, too broad, or too ambiguous to successfully accomplish
this – each of these mistakes can lead to legal quagmires or bad hires
continuing to slip through the cracks and potentially endanger businesses.