How To Improve Your Time To Hire

Learn how background screening can help improve onboarding

Growing worker demand is an issue facing the entire nation across industries. Burnout and absenteeism cause high turnover rates, and many organizations do not have younger talent in the pipeline to replace their aging workforces.
 

From healthcare to aviation, the need for qualified, reliable workers is becoming increasingly apparent. With 11 million job openings across the United States, recruiters, staffers, and HR leaders continue to compete for experienced workers. Add on nearly 26% of the workforce working remotely, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to retain current employees and efficiently onboard new ones.

How are companies adapting and streamlining onboarding?

Candidate Experience Comes First

Today’s candidates have come to expect a great experience. Larger organizations spotted this early on and have invested heavily in user-friendly, fast, and mobile-first experiences for years. As time passes, candidates have come to expect that same level of thought to be put into the overall hiring and onboarding experience.

The screening process will be one of these candidates' first engagements with your brand, which is critical. It is commonplace to see bad experiences shared on social media, personally with friends and or other potential candidates. Ensure your candidates can fill out forms where, when, and how they want when you send them.  They will be happier, and you will speed up hiring. It is a win-win.

Hire the Right Candidate with the Right Experience

Having witnessed the Great Resignation or Great Reshuffle, HR leaders know the volatility in the current labor market and understand the increased importance of attracting and hiring the right people. Beyond turnover, companies risk spending considerable time and money on talent acquisition.

For an employee that makes $60,000 annually, recruiting and training that new hire would cost approximately $30,000-$45,000. When trying to expedite the background screening process without the right CRA and the proper process, there are likely errors that may lead to a bad hire, ending in a costly termination and replacement.

Verify, Verify, Verify!

The rates at which job applicants provide false information on a resume, or parts of their resume, may surprise some. A StandOutCV survey found that 55% of Americans have lied about their personal details, skills, experience, or references on their resumes at least once. If overlooked or missed, a hire with false information on their resume will likely not work out, resulting in a bad hire or, worse, a negligent hiring claim or lawsuit.

The bottom line: companies need to ensure that as they fill open positions, they are hiring qualified candidates and doing so quickly. In a talent market with more open positions than job applicants, employers competing to fill vacant roles are pushing for faster, more accurate pre-employment background checks and drug screenings.

Optimize workflows to move fast. Comprehensive background checks performed by accredited screening firms ultimately save companies time and money by onboarding qualified employees while ensuring they are the right fit. These pre-employment screenings are key components of mitigating potential risks, but the process can become overwhelming if it does not seamlessly integrate into a business’s existing workflows.

Each organization has unique needs and requirements when it comes to vetting candidates. Modern platforms offering tech-integrated solutions ensure hiring managers can tailor background check components to their corresponding roles – providing the information they need before hiring while helping filter out the rest.

For example, before being onboarded, clinicians in the healthcare industry must meet specific education and health requirements vastly different from those required for a pilot or commercial truck driver. Additionally, constantly shifting laws and emerging industry concerns can complicate regular screening. By partnering with an accredited Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA) that offers user-friendly technologies, businesses and candidates are kept up-to-date on the status, moving candidates through the onboarding process quickly, and ensuring that hiring managers can confidently make critical staffing decisions.

Taking precautions, such as thorough background screening reduces an organization’s chance of hiring an ill-fitting employee. In the unpredictable atmosphere of today’s workforce, ensuring someone is a safe hire is just as important as conducting employee health screenings to confirm a prospective candidate can perform a particular job or task.

If not managed correctly, these potential pitfalls can damage a company's brand, morale, and bottom line, not to mention directly affecting the safety of employees and customers.

Companies can strengthen their background check program by pairing HR departments with an accredited CRA. Working in tandem, your company’s HR leaders and its screening partners can create a complete screening program that produces only the most qualified and vetted candidates while reducing the time to hire and optimizing existing workflows. In turn, your HR teams will be able to spend less time on screening tasks, focusing on other aspects of their work.

With the help of a partnered CRA, organizations can use their pre-employment screening program to:

• Confirm a candidate’s qualifications or alert you if they lack proper education and training
• Alert HR teams to criminal convictions
• Confirm a candidate's health status via medical exams
• Deliver a better experience to candidates and employees while building a safer culture.  
• Remain compliant with federal hiring laws, such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act
• Reveal discrepancies in a candidate’s work history
• Minimize risk of employee fraud and theft
• Ensure employee adherence to relevant drug/alcohol compliance requirements
• Reduce their rate of unwanted turnover

Whether an organization is hiring for new positions or backfilling previous ones, companies must consider what the prospective candidates value from their job. Once a candidate checks all the initial boxes, that company must ensure that the candidate also checks off all the background, drug and health screening boxes or risk an unwanted turnover.

As the demand for new employees increases, so do the risks. Using solutions that enhance pre-employment management and employee screening, leaders and HR professionals can be confident in their hires while expediting the onboarding process.

Author Bio

RJ Frasca joined Vault Workforce Screening in 2022. RJ brings over 25 years of strategic marketing and product experience. He has spent the last decade in the background screening space. He has extensive experience in marketing and product management and is a well-known and respected strategist and thought leader. RJ’s responsibilities at Vault Workforce Screening include strategic oversight of all company marketing initiatives.