2024
Every Check Counts: How the Right Background Screenings Unlock Improved Quality of Hire
Large organizations weigh in on the impact of background checks on quality of hire, recruitment efficiency, and success of their talent acquisition program.
Introduction
Building a strong team isn't just about filling positions; it's about building the foundation for your business’ success. Your team members help you innovate, serve your customers, and drive your business forward. It’s no surprise Checkr’s 2024 Every Check Counts survey of 1850+ large employers (4000+ employees) found that elevating the quality of hire is the top priority for HR and talent acquisition leaders.
What are large organizations’ top recruitment goals in 2024?
Hiring the right candidate the first time often leads to shorter time-to-productivity, higher employee engagement rates, lower turnover, and lower onboarding costs. When the estimated cost of employee disengagement and attrition alone is between $228 million and $255 million a year for a median-size S&P 500 company, quickly identifying and hiring high-quality candidates is crucial.
Learn how large employers are prioritizing more efficient, effective background check processes to elevate their quality of hire.
5 quality of hire insights for large organizations
Insight 1
Efficient background checks keep top-choice candidates engaged
Efficient background checks make your hiring process faster, keeping your top-choice candidates engaged in your recruitment process. Quick turnaround times can also minimize the anxiety and uncertainty candidates may feel during the recruitment process, leading to a better overall candidate experience.
A Checkr survey of 1850+ large employers (4000+ employees) found that 75% of HR and talent acquisition leaders agree or strongly agree that optimizing the background check process for accuracy and efficiency is essential to providing a positive candidate experience. A better experience further improves candidate engagement and increases the likelihood of your top-choice candidates accepting your job offer over the competition.
We asked large organizations: Do you believe an efficient background check process can decrease time-to-productivity for new hires?
Unblock efficiency for a better quality of hire
Our survey found that increasing background check efficiency is ranked as the top way organizations want to improve their background check process in the next 12 months. However, their top two pain points—the time it takes to run a background check and concerns about the accuracy of background checks—stand in their way.
What do large organizations say is their biggest pain point during the background check process?
Implementing the right tools can lead to faster, more accurate background checks:
- Modern data technology that leverages vertically integrated data sources to improve accuracy, speed report creation, and clearly classify different records and information.
- Integrations and flexible API capabilities that streamline background checks into your end-to-end hiring flow, improving both the candidate experience and your team’s efficiency.
- Dedicated, fast support for your team and candidates to get answers to questions, address concerns, or make corrections to unblock bottlenecks.
- A mobile-friendly candidate portal with intuitive workflows, automated notifications, and easy communication tools that keep candidates engaged and screenings moving.
Insight 2
Employers are seeking AI-powered background checks
AI can help you evaluate top talent faster—and often with better accuracy. This is particularly important for large organizations that need to be able to hire at scale, often coordinating across dispersed hiring teams, in order to remain competitive.
Most recruiters and HR decision makers (58%) already use AI to augment their current recruitment technology tech stack, with 82% reporting using AI-powered tools frequently or very frequently.
Plus, our survey found that 62% of HR and talent acquisition leaders are more likely to choose a background check vendor that offers AI tools than those that do not offer AI tools.
AI adoption is paying off; companies that use AI are more likely to improve time to fill, the candidate experience, cost per hire, DEI, and quality of hire.
We asked large organizations: Are you more likely to choose a background check partner that offers AI tools instead of one that does not?
How AI powers background checks
AI-enhanced workflows can speed up screenings by automating slow manual tasks, using machine learning to build easy-to-read reports, and helping mitigate compliance risk with built-in filters that reduce the chance for human error.
For example, you can use AI to help you:
Standardize charge data
Criminal records are often returned from court systems using different codes and terms to notate charges. AI can normalize charge language, enabling employers to accelerate decisions on candidates and more easily manage compliance.
Optimize adjudication
AI-enhanced charge classifiers and adjudication filters can help you replace slow, manual tasks that are prone to error with efficiency through automated guidelines and workflows. Plus, these tools help you build a consistent decision-making model that helps keep you compliant and makes it easy for even the largest talent acquisition teams to adhere to your background check and hiring policies.
Match aliases
One in three people have an alias, which means candidates may provide a name other than their legal name for a background check. Name-matching algorithms can compare and quantify the likelihood that multiple names (aliases) found in a search are a match, and help you find up to 27% more records.
Automate verifications
AI can help determine whether job or education information returned from an employment or education verification data source matches the information submitted by your candidate, reducing review time.
Maintain compliance
Screening technology built with machine learning can help you filter out any information that’s not legally reportable so you can simplify compliance with federal, state, and local laws—even when hiring across multiple regions or jurisdictions.
78%
of large organizations who use Checkr’s Assess tool have automatically unblocked a candidate during the adjudication process
Insight 3
Background check screenings help employers make informed hiring decisions
Background checks provide valuable insights into a candidate's history and qualifications, offering a clearer picture of their suitability for a role. Large employers say they run background checks primarily to improve the quality of hire and comply with federal and state laws, though there are many other benefits.
What is the most important reason why large organizations say they run background checks?
Improve your quality of hire with the right background checks for each role
Not every role in your organization will require the same screenings, but your team should run the same set of screenings for identical roles. This approach ensures consistency, fairness, and thoroughness in your hiring process.
Each role has unique responsibilities and risks, sometimes necessitating different screenings. For example, positions that involve operating a vehicle may require driving record (MVR) checks, while roles with access to sensitive company financials may require a credit check. By tailoring the screening process to the specific requirements of each role, you ensure that relevant factors are considered, providing a comprehensive evaluation of a candidate’s suitability.
It's also important to avoid unnecessary screenings for any role while ensuring critical checks are not overlooked. Over-screening candidates may end up costing you more time and money, plus increase the risk that candidates accept employment elsewhere. Conversely, under-screening may negatively impact your quality of hire, make you more vulnerable to risk, and potentially damage your organization’s reputation. Selecting the right background checks for each role helps you maintain your quality of hire without sacrificing valuable resources.
Most large organizations that partner with Checkr run a criminal record search and criminal record search with a county criminal search, adding additional screenings, as needed, for each role.
Most popular screenings for large organizations who partner with Checkr:
Insight 4
Inefficient adjudication processes block quality talent
Reviewing and adjudicating background check results is the process of making an assessment on whether to hire a candidate. Our survey revealed that employers see this stage of the background check process as needing the most improvement.
Which part of the background check process do large organizations say needs the most improvement?
While most employers have a partially or fully automated adjudication process for background checks, 27% have a fully manual process. “A judgment call by humans means there can be mistakes—letting pros in who shouldn’t be on the platform or not letting in ones who should be given a chance,” shares Sean Miller, VP of Operations at Angi.
An inefficient or inconsistent adjudication process can put you at risk of removing qualified talent from your pipeline or losing them to faster teams. “[Companies] are missing out on really good candidates because of relatively minor offenses,” continues Miller. “Recidivism rates plummet after 3-4 years and with employment.”
Expand your talent pool with programmatic adjudication
A streamlined and fair adjudication process is crucial to maintaining high hiring standards and ensuring the best candidates can move forward quickly.
Our survey found that report classification and filtering was the top task HR and talent acquisition leaders would automate to improve background check efficiency.
Which background check tasks do large organizations most prefer to automate to improve efficiency?
Programmatic adjudication solutions surface only the records you want your team to review for each position. This helps you make faster hiring decisions, create consistency across large or dispersed talent acquisition teams, and mitigate the risk of bias. Solutions that provide the opportunity to build multiple rulesets based on factors like role, department, and location, and set up case management workflows for large TA teams are the gold standard to look for.
For example, Checkr Assess enables AI-enhanced programmatic review and adjudication by your team and helps establish safeguards that only surface relevant charges, increase consistency, and reduce bias. With custom rule-setting for 235 criminal record categories, your Assess toolset can reduce manual review work for your adjudicators by up to 85%. The powerful analytics in Assess allow you to see hiring patterns and predict candidate funnel impact before making changes to your hiring criteria.
Insight 5
Background checks are an investment in your team
Our survey found that most HR and talent acquisition leaders (69%) are extremely or quite confident that running background checks improves their quality of hire. Further, 68% believe that background checks can effectively decrease time-to-productivity and 61% believe they help reduce turnover. Investing in background checks is an investment in your team’s success.
How confident are large organizations that running background checks improves the quality of hire?
Build a high performing team
By screening in candidates who are an excellent match for a role, the right background checks can lead to higher job satisfaction and longer tenure. Plus, most large organizations agree that when new hires arrive on their first day with verified experience and qualifications, time-to-productivity is improved.
Employees may be more likely to stay with the organization when they feel confident and competent in their roles, reducing the costs and disruptions associated with high turnover rates. As we can see above, most large employers recognize the connection between high-quality background check programs and building a successful team. This means improving efficiencies within your screening process not only fills seats faster but also helps your organization achieve key initiatives on a shorter timeline and reduces the impact of unfilled roles.
Describe how you feel about the following statement: An efficient background check process can effectively decrease the time it takes my company to turn a new hire into a productive employee.
The takeaway
Building an efficient, effective background check process is a worthwhile investment to improve your quality of hire.
Our survey found that 75% of HR and talent acquisition leaders agree or strongly agree that improvements to the background check process positively impact talent acquisition ROI and help reduce hiring costs. Simply put, a positive background check experience can improve everything from candidate engagement and offer acceptance rates to time-to-productivity and retention.
You need a high-quality team to help your business succeed, and Checkr can help you build it. Checkr helps tech-forward enterprises hire candidates faster, automate manual tasks, and efficiently scale their people processes.
Ready to level-up your screening program? Access our free RFP template that makes it easy to choose the best background check vendor, or get in touch.
Are you settling for “good enough?”
Get our guide to choosing a background check provider for hiring at scale
Survey methodology
1,856 American workers, ages 25+, involved in the background check process at a company with 4,000+ employees participated in this study. Respondents were gathered from seven key industries including hospitality, HR/staffing, manufacturing, business services, retail, software, and transportation. The survey was administered in June 2024 and consisted of 15 questions related to the background check process.
7 different industries
Disclaimer
The resources and information provided here are for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. Always consult your own counsel for up-to-date legal advice and guidance related to your practices, needs, and compliance with applicable laws.
