Are You Making These Background Check Tradeoffs?

Traditional background check processes have often required employers to choose between crucial considerations like reporting speed, accuracy, and cost. You may have heard or even experienced the following when assessing reporting vendors:

If you’re making any of these tradeoffs, it may be time to switch to a modern background check provider that doesn’t ask you to make sacrifices on speed, accuracy, or price.

Let’s take a closer look at how each of these tradeoffs may be impacting your hiring flow and organization, plus how technology-driven solutions could allow you to stop making concessions on background checks.

Tradeoff: To guarantee accuracy without breaking the bank, your background checks may be slow or even entirely reliant on human resource teams and manual reporting. Checkr’s US worker surveys report that turnaround time is the number one job search turn-off for candidates, and 20% of candidates surveyed have abandoned a job opportunity because the background check took too long.

Solution: A background check provider that uses machine learning to gather and filter accurate data can speed up turnaround times without increasing costs. How? By allowing modern technology to complete previously manual tasks like sourcing and sorting screenings at scale, human labor is directed only toward complex actions that require manual review.

Tradeoff: You need your background checks to be returned quickly to ensure a faster hiring process, but you don’t want to bust your budget. So, you put up with a higher level of risk by working with a vendor who either doesn’t deliver the highest standard of accuracy or who still leaves compliance management on your hiring team’s plate.

What’s really at risk when you compromise on background screening accuracy? Without reliable background checks that prioritize compliant reporting, it can be more difficult for you to:

Solution: The best modern, quick-response background check technology has built-in compliance tools that stay up-to-date with changing laws. The very best providers then combine these technological advantages with reviews by trained professionals to help ensure automated reports are accurate. This means most results can still be returned in minutes (which also keeps your orders cost-effective), and you’re safeguarded against risk by making hiring decisions based on reliable data.

Tradeoff: To guarantee both the background check quality and speed you need for your hiring flow, you’re paying top dollar for a background check provider. But could working with a vendor who uses modern tech to increase efficiency and offers customizable screening packages lower your price?

Even if your hiring process return on investment (ROI) is currently in the black, taking a closer look at opportunities to reduce the cost of your background checks could help you boost your ROI or re-allocate funds toward other initiatives.

Solution: Working with a provider who uses digital reporting technology to help ensure accuracy and compliance can actually save you money, without hurting the safety or speed of your background checks. Machine learning can instantly classify and retrieve screenings, minimize errors, and reduce the need to fund large human resource teams and time spent on manual task completion.

Checkr offers background checks that don’t ask you to make sacrifices or settle for "good enough".

We provide swift, smooth, and safe reports by using automation and machine learning to improve accuracy, speed up hiring, and mitigate your risk. 89% of our customers say their background check turnaround time is faster than their previous service, and our transparent pricing packages allow you to pay only for screenings you need—such as criminal background checks, driving records (MVRs), and employment verification.

By leveraging both automation and human review, we build efficient, accurate reports that keep your hiring flow moving swiftly. Checkr’s candidate portal provides candidates visibility into the background check process every step of the way, and tools like Assess allow teams to spend less time on adjudication.

Ready to modernize your background checks and stop making tradeoffs that hurt your hiring flow? Get started with Checkr.

About the author

As Content Marketing Manager at Checkr, Kate is passionate about developing resources that educate employers and job candidates about background checks, hiring insights, and the opportunity to build a better future through fair chance hiring.