5 Things Growing Businesses Look for in a Background Check Provider

For many businesses, hiring new talent often means competing with other organizations to hire top candidates quickly. This is especially challenging for teams who don’t yet have established background check workflows or are operating with fewer resources than other teams.

Clunky manual background check programs increase the likelihood that your candidates will end up somewhere else. Near the end of the hiring process, it’s important to screen quickly so you can make job offers to your ideal candidates as soon as possible. Focusing on candidate experience, using modern technology such as integrations, and choosing a strong background check provider can all help you streamline your background check process and hire more confidently.

Manual background check processes and inaccurate data may cost your team candidates. Choosing the right background check provider is critical for hiring new employees quickly and efficiently. What’s the best way for your team to make that decision?

Choosing a background screening provider that’s not a fit for your business or offers a clunky user interface may push strong candidates away. Overly long or frustrating background check processes not only keep you from hiring quickly but also give candidates a negative impression of your organization as a whole.

However, a strong background check partner can run checks more quickly and give candidates a better experience, helping you secure the employees who will help your business grow. The right provider will also help keep you apprised of background check laws so your team stays abreast of all legal requirements.

This article breaks down how the right background check partner can help you hire great candidates for your business, plus the most important questions to ask when choosing a provider.

Gartner and Korn Ferry expect that over 85 million jobs will be unfilled in 2030, and the talent management personnel hiring for these roles feel overwhelmed: 61% of talent management leaders feel that the current demand exceeds their actual capacity to hire and manage employees. For businesses that don’t have dedicated talent management or HR teams, hiring is even more challenging for managers or business owners.

The current job market is tough for candidates, too, which may cause them to select the first offer they receive from a promising employer. This puts the pressure on smaller hiring teams to make offers in an accelerated timeframe.

Demanding, redundant background check workflows can frustrate candidates and add extra work for your hiring managers. But background check partners that prioritize automation and swift adjudication decisions can speed your hiring process and reduce your time to hire.

Manual data searches can significantly slow the background check process. Ask a provider what percentage of their background check process is automated versus manual, and make sure they can articulate how that impacts turnaround times.

Also consider the percentage of background checks that the vendor completes on the first attempt, without corrections. A provider should be able to provide a rough estimate. Finally, ask potential providers about the methods they use to handle volume increases and slowdowns, such as during peak hiring times or hiring surges. Having measures in place to maintain consistent turnaround times during those fluctuations is key.

Ask: How do you handle counties or rural jurisdictions that historically have slow processing times?

Background check providers may have tools that help facilitate adjudication decisions for their customers. Platforms that support multiple adjudication filters or rulesets within one account are a bonus. The provider should be able to articulate how rulesets may be applied to different candidates.

Ask: What automated adjudication workflows do you offer to help us make fair, consistent adverse action decisions?

Ask a potential background check partner how many customers and checks their platform currently supports. While your business may not need the full volume yet, you’ll want to ensure that the provider can accommodate the volume of background checks you may need in the future. Platform reliability and uptime is also critical—if the background check provider’s infrastructure is shaky, that could cost you valuable time during the hiring process.

Ask: How likely is an outage, and in what way would that affect our background check workflows?

Candidate experience plays a key role in accepting a job after an offer. And your background check provider can affect candidate experience more than you think: if the background check process isn’t clearly explained or has a clunky user interface, promising candidates may decide the role isn’t worth the confusion and time.

A negative candidate experience could cost your business good candidates, but it can also affect your organization’s reputation.

On the other hand, 47% of candidates would accept a role with lower starting salary if they believed the employer communicated well with candidates and if they had a positive experience during the hiring process. This is where small and mid-sized employers can really stand out: they’re often flexible enough to customize communication with candidates and pivot more quickly during hiring.

One of the best qualities of a strong background check process is giving candidates the opportunity to share their story. This doesn’t just apply to cases impacted by Ban the Box or fair chance laws. It’s helpful to give candidates a straightforward avenue to dispute any inaccurate information in their background check, so mistakes don’t negatively impact their chance at an offer.

Candidate workflows also include a timely background check process; as an employer, you’ll want checks to be completed as quickly as possible. Not only will you be better positioned to extend job offers sooner, but you’ll also give your candidates a better quality experience.

Ask: Do you provide tools that increase our visibility into background check timelines or allow us to predict a candidate’s approximate start date?

At some point, you’ll probably need to touch base with your provider for technical support or answers to questions about using their software. Ideally, your provider will take actionable steps to speed the background check process so you can hire candidates more quickly. Ask how they handle requests and what the query process looks like.

Also look for a provider with a readily available support team. You’ll want technicians to respond promptly when you need them, and rapid response channels (such as live chat and phone calls) are especially helpful. If 24/7 support is important to your team, look for vendors who offer around-the-clock responses.

Ask:  What are your candidate support options, including the support team’s hours of availability and average response time? Additionally, are there self-service options, like help articles, for candidates?

84% of HR leaders believe that improving background check procedures would decrease their overall hiring costs. Tight hiring budgets are an opportunity to analyze your background checks and ask where they can be made more efficient.

Your hiring managers won’t have much spare time to attempt manual software integrations or perform duplicate data entry. Look for background check providers that offer app connectors and custom API integrations for your existing HR software.

The first order of business is learning which HR platforms your prospective provider partners with. You’ll want to check whether those integrations are readily deployable, so you’re not stuck coercing two different software solutions to work together. If the provider does offer an integration with your business’s current HR software, ask for a demonstration of workflows that showcases a straightforward, logical flow of data.

It’s also worth asking whether the background check provider supports custom integration work. You may still have options if an established turnkey integration doesn’t yet exist.

Ask: What is your timeline for deploying and finalizing partner software integrations?

A background check provider should be able to describe their RESTful API capabilities, including how customizable their workflows are. Ask whether the vendor can support fully hosted workflows within your own proprietary software, including whether the workflow will redirect candidates to a screening invitation or not. Single sign-on and data syncing are also helpful for end-to-end workflows, like logging in securely.

Ask: What webhooks could our team leverage to adjust to future changes or updates to your fulfillment process?

As more background screening regulations are enacted, compliance becomes a more complicated process. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and Title VII apply to all US businesses, but employers must also consider state and city Ban the Box laws: 37 states and over 190 local jurisdictions have implemented them.

FCRA

Legality of marijuana

Ban the box

Salary history

Credit history

FCRA is a federal law governing how companies order and consider information contained in a background check. It covers all 50 states, plus Washington DC and Puerto Rico.

47 states plus Washington DC have enacted laws that make medicinal and/or recreational marijuana use legal for adults under at least some circumstances.

37 states and 190 cities/counties have enacted Ban the Box laws that vary greatly based on scope, nature, location and and jurisdiction, but generally restrict some employers from asking about a candidate’s criminal history on initial job application forms.

19 states and 19 cities/counties, plus Washington DC and Puerto Rico, have enacted salary history laws that vary based on location and jurisdiction, but generally prohibit employers from asking for previous salary information.

10 states and 3 cities, plus Washington DC and Puerto Rico, have enacted laws that restrict the use of credit information in hiring decisions.

Additionally, Clean Slate laws, drug screening laws, and salary history laws often apply to background checks. Violating any of these could lead to paying damages.

For small or mid-sized businesses, this is especially critical. You may not have a data controller or legal team, and your few HR employees (or managers who oversee hiring) aren’t at leisure to spend hours per week sorting through background check laws. To mitigate this risk, partner with a background screening provider that uses technology like automation to navigate federal, state, and local criminal records.

Complying with regional regulations requires you to understand any state and local laws. A background check provider with strong compliance features should generate compliance forms for different hiring locations when applicable. It’s also worth requesting specific examples or case studies from the provider that demonstrate how they’ve successfully maintained compliance in different regulatory environments.

Ask: How often do you update your solution to continue complying with regulations and laws as they change over time and new ones are enacted?

For larger or highly-regulated businesses, custom compliance features may be a priority. If you’re hiring employees from multiple states, for example, you’ll have a variety of laws to consider rather than just one state’s regulations. A background check provider that takes a modular approach to compliance may help your business better manage a variety of background check laws.

Ask: How can your solution scale as our business grows or our regulatory needs change?

Look for a background check provider who doesn’t only meet your immediate needs but can also develop alongside your team as your business grows. This is especially important for small teams that may not need a large background check program now but are planning to double or triple their workforce in the next few years.

Investigate the methods your prospective background check provider uses to develop new platform features. Even if you don’t need those features immediately, it’s important to consider them as your business scales. Additionally, ensure that the provider can clearly articulate any new technology they’re developing that might be able to enhance your hiring team’s background check process.

Ask: How do you view the role of machine learning in background checks both now and in the next five years?

The hallmark of a background check provider that will be a partner to your business, not just a vendor, is how well that company responds to feedback. If your prospective provider regularly gathers customer feedback or triages and implements product requests over time, that’s a good sign. That also indicates that your provider can grow with you over time, even if they don’t yet have every feature you’ll need in five years. Being receptive to customer ideas sets a background check provider apart.

Ask: Can you provide examples of improvements or customizations that you’ve launched after receiving customer feedback?

We’ve just covered compliance in the short term, but laws change, and background check providers must adjust accordingly. Consider how your shortlist of potential providers implement software updates that reflect legislative changes. This is especially important if your business hires in multiple states or countries.

Ask: How often do you implement new workflows or update them based on regulatory changes across our specific hiring regions?

Is your business new to background checks, trying to find the right fit as you launch a new hiring process? Or maybe your business has been working with your current background check provider for a few years, but they’re delivering reports slower than you need or have an unresponsive support team.

In a highly competitive talent market, the wrong background check provider could keep you from hiring the best candidates for your business. Slowdowns can be particularly harmful to small teams, who may need to rely on their ability to pivot and make quick decisions when hiring strong candidates.

The right background check provider for your business can help you streamline and automate your screening process so you’re able to:

Checkr’s easy-to-use background check solutions help employers conduct faster, more accurate background checks. Our AI-powered processes streamline your workflows and help you evaluate your candidates consistently. We have responsive customer support teams who are readily available to support you and your candidates. Get started with Checkr today.

About the author

Jenna Phipps writes about software solutions for businesses, including human resources, background checks, and legal compliance. Her work includes web articles and hiring resources for HR professionals and SMBs.