Every company needs to do a background check on their traines before debut...

They should hire those K-drama private detectives. They can find anything.

They know, and the unscrupulous CEOs use it as blackmail so they could "date" members who are compromised

I think it's easier said than done and a lot of companies probably already try

Quote from quark12395

How do you background check for bullying though? Especially if nothing is ever reported to teachers. Do you interview every single classmate? Every single person in their year? The whole school? Family members of people who go to the school? People who live in the town? Do you really think anyone has the time and money for that?

They just go to their school and get their records or info from administrators. They also interview the trainees and ask them if they had any incidents. You'd be very naive if you think companies aren't gathering all sorts of information, when in the audition process they already ask for a lot of things from them

But how to do it? I doubt schools release info for companies and if they go around asking kids chances are some would lie or friends would defend. I doubt the ones who are actually bullied will dare to speak up at the time. If they go by reputation I doubt they’ll have that many trainees as most do not hang out with exemplary students.That’s why the rare celebs who didn’t party smoke or ditched school are always praised on sites and fans brag about them.

Quote from quark12395

But if nothing is reported then there's no record. I literally said "if nothing is reported" in my post. Also how do you know they're telling the truth if they say no? That's what sounds naïve to me.

LOL

If sasaengs who are usually teens find out personal stuff about their biases, don't you think a company with more access to their trainees and money wouldn't hire professionals to do vetting and background checks?

A reason a lot of iljins end up in kpop is because they are the most easily controlled by their companies. They have a dirty past and hence to protect their career they need to do exactly what the companies say. There's exceptions, but Cube seems to be the ones that don't mind trainees with "ambiguous pasts"

Quote from quark12395

But if nothing is reported then there's no record. I literally said "if nothing is reported" in my post. Also how do you know they're telling the truth if they say no? That's what sounds naïve to me.

Is it even legal to share? In my country it’s illegal to share school reports/files with anyone but parents/legal guardian

I really wonder why they don't that in my country before getting into a company or something like that you need to provide your criminal record

I think someone posted it here about how big companies do their background checks (if said info is true). Because of how much money is involved, these big companies do put the resources for that. They try to dig info for classmates, teachers, parents, and so on. It seems complicated and lot of work. Even with this it may not be bullet proof.

The other caveat is usually entertainment staff aren't really well trained and well paid even if they work in such big name companies. So quality of investigators may vary as well. I imagine international trainees wouldn't be as scrutinized and they would rely on the quality of their scout team. Still it seems more effort than what sports teams and possibly actor's agency do.

Of course they don't need to check too many. Trainees who start at very young (like Jihyo, for instance) would be trained to behave early on, so no need to waste resources on investigating on very young ones as they will be scrutinized early on anyway.

I think it is only economically feasible for big companies and a bit iffy for medium sized ones. (they probably rely on scouting team). Small sized ones is basically playing lottery to begin with as their odds of succeeding are low anyway.

In practical terms, there isn't much upside to investigate them. If we go by odds, most kids are either bystanders, not victims, or victims than bullies themselves. Judging by the news it looks like an epidemic of bullies, but looking at the amount of trainees and idols, it doesn't seem that big of a number. Not sure if it's higher than average. I don't feel like running the numbers to see the stats.

Impossible to do this. 90% of Kpop companies are as big as your average Wendy's franchises, they dont have anywhere near the manpower or money to do this.

And BG checks focus on easy to find criminal and civil records and interviews with former employers/employees. How is a company supposed to track down the thousands of students, teachers, and other friends/peers that an idol had contact with over his or her lifetime? Most of this bullying takes place completely off the record, have any of the schools involved kept ANY official records of the bullying?

For the amount that is invested in them, I would assume they are doing background checks. But we do see with many of these cases that there is often conflicting information from different people and/or teachers and often a lack of documentation. If they can’t get concrete and clear answers is when the idol is famous or well known, why would they be able to find more detailed information when they are a random nobody trainee?