How we hire, and what we check
We clean inside people's homes and hold keys to their businesses. That means we screen carefully — and it also means you deserve to know exactly what we look at, when, and what happens if something comes back that concerns us. All of it is below.
The seven steps
You apply online
Ten minutes. We ask for contact details, availability, work history, references, and the criminal history question Florida law expects of an employer sending people into occupied homes. No Social Security number, no date of birth, no documents.
Phone screen
Within about five business days, a 15-minute call: schedule, pay expectations, where you can travel, how you will get to job sites.
In-person interview
You meet a supervisor. We go through the tier checklists line by line so you know the actual standard before you agree to work to it. Bring questions — the ones about pay and hours are the good ones.
Paid working interview
A half day in the field with a crew lead, paid at the role's starting rate whether or not we hire you. You see the real work; we see how you handle a customer's home.
Conditional offer, in writing
Role, hourly rate, schedule, start date, and what the offer is conditional on. Nothing verbal.
Background check and work authorization
Only now. You get a secure link, you read the disclosure, and you sign an authorization before anything is submitted. Details below.
First day and paid training
You complete federal Form I-9 on your first day of work and present documents you choose from the Form I-9 Lists of Acceptable Documents. Then you shadow an experienced technician before you run anything alone.
Background checks
Because our people work unsupervised inside homes and hold keys and alarm codes for commercial accounts, every offer is contingent on a criminal background check. Here is how it works.
When it happens
After a conditional offer — never at the application stage, and never before you have signed. If you decline to authorize the check, we cannot proceed with hiring, but nothing is submitted without your signature.
What you sign first
Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. § 1681b(b)(2)), before we can order a background report we must give you a clear, standalone written disclosure that a report may be obtained, and you must sign a written authorization. The disclosure is its own document — it contains nothing but the disclosure, with no waivers or extra terms buried in it. You keep a copy.
What we look at
- Identity verification
- County, state and national criminal records
- National sex offender registry
- For roles that drive: your motor vehicle record, with your separate written authorization
- Employment and reference verification for the employers you listed and did not mark "do not contact"
We do not pull credit reports for any position. We do not check social media as part of the screening. We do not ask for your salary history.
If something comes back
A record does not end things automatically. We make an individualized assessment: what the offense was, how long ago it happened, what you have done since, and whether it genuinely relates to this job. Someone with an old conviction unrelated to entering homes or handling money is very often still hired.
If we are considering not hiring you because of something in the report, the FCRA gives you a process and we follow it:
- Pre-adverse action notice. We send you a copy of the report itself and a copy of "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act" — before we decide anything.
- Time to respond. You get at least five business days to review the report, tell us it is wrong, dispute it with the reporting agency, or give us context we do not have. We will actually read what you send.
- Adverse action notice. If we still cannot move forward, we tell you in writing, name the consumer reporting agency that supplied the report, and state plainly that the agency did not make the decision and cannot explain it. You have the right to a free copy of the report from that agency within 60 days and the right to dispute its accuracy.
Authorization to work in the United States
Federal law requires every employer to verify that each new hire is authorized to work in the United States. Here is exactly what that means for you:
- Form I-9, first day. You complete Section 1 no later than your first day of work, and present documents establishing identity and work authorization by your third business day.
- You choose the documents. We hand you the Lists of Acceptable Documents and you pick which ones to present. We cannot demand a specific document, cannot ask for more or different documents than the law requires, and cannot reject a document that reasonably appears genuine. Requiring more than the law requires is itself unlawful discrimination.
- E-Verify. Section 448.095, Florida Statutes requires private employers with 25 or more employees to run each new hire through E-Verify within three business days after the first day the employee works for pay. Gulf ProClean applies this standard to every hire so the process does not change as we grow. E-Verify is never used to pre-screen applicants and is never run before you are hired.
- Tentative Nonconfirmation. If E-Verify returns a mismatch, we give you the written referral notice, we tell you how to contest it, and we do not fire you, suspend you, cut your hours, delay your start date, or withhold pay while you resolve it. Taking any of those actions during that window is prohibited.
- Recordkeeping. We retain the E-Verify case documentation for at least three years, as Florida law requires.
We do not ask about your citizenship, immigration status, or country of origin at any point in hiring. The application asks only whether you are legally authorized to work in the US and whether you will need visa sponsorship — the two questions employers are permitted to ask.
Drug-free workplace
Gulf ProClean maintains a drug-free workplace under sections 440.101–440.102, Florida Statutes. Positions that involve driving, operating powered equipment, or unsupervised access to customer property are subject to testing: pre-employment after a conditional offer, on reasonable suspicion, after a workplace accident, and as part of a return-to-duty agreement.
Before any test, you receive the full written policy — the substances tested, the licensed laboratory used, the over-the-counter and prescription medications that can affect results, the consequences of refusing, and available employee assistance resources. If a test comes back positive, the Medical Review Officer notifies you, and you have five working days to contest or explain the result to the MRO before it is reported to us. Job vacancy announcements for tested positions say so up front.
Equal opportunity and accommodation
Need an accommodation? If a disability makes any part of this process — the online form, the interview, the working interview — hard to complete, email gulfproclean@gmail.com or call us and say so. Asking will not be held against you, and we will not ask about your diagnosis.
Veterans and military spouses. We are veteran-owned. Tell us about drill weekends, deployment windows or PCS timing and we will schedule around them rather than screening you out for them.
Your privacy
Application data is stored in our own database and is seen only by the people making the hiring decision. We do not sell it or share it with anyone but the consumer reporting agency running your check, and only after you authorize it. Ask us to delete your application at any time by emailing gulfproclean@gmail.com, and we will, subject to the recordkeeping periods the law requires us to observe.
This page describes Gulf ProClean's hiring practices and summarizes legal requirements in plain language. It is not legal advice and it is not a contract of employment. Employment with Gulf ProClean is at will. Where this page and the underlying law differ, the law controls. Statutes cited: 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681b, 1681m; 8 U.S.C. § 1324a; §§ 448.095, 440.101–440.102, 768.096 and Chapter 760, Florida Statutes.