3 Strategies to Speed Up Background Checks

If you’re trying to hire new talent in 2022, you know that the labor market is tight. Jobs outnumber candidates, which means competition to attract great employees is fierce. A slow background check gives your chosen candidate too much time to look elsewhere or move on. Here are three strategies to speed up your background checks:

1. Partner with a Professional Screening Agency

Retaining a reliable, professional background check vendor with a proven reputation for fast turnaround times is the most important thing you can do to improve the speed and efficiency of your screening process. An experienced, accredited screening partner has extensive resources and tools to get results quickly and safely navigate all the thorny compliance issues accompanying background checks. 

2. Integrate Your ATS

You’re probably already using an ATS (applicant tracking system) to streamline your recruiting and hiring process. A solid ATS helps you pre-screen applicants, keep candidates in the loop about where their application stands and offers a central location for entering personal data. Integrated background checks take this one step further by making screening part of the ATS. With one system – your own ATS – candidates can enter their information once and see the status of their background checks in real-time. You avoid costly, error-prone duplicate data entry, get all the compliance tools you need at your fingertips, and have easy real-time access to reports and data. 

Integrating background checks in your ATS – something many providers are able to easily do with your existing system – provides invaluable automation that speeds up every step of the process. 

3. Support Mobile Technology

Reputable screening vendors provide their clients with the technology needed to improve the candidate experience from beginning to end. Your applicants need to provide detailed personal information for a background check to proceed, such as prior addresses, dates of previous employment, contact info for previous employers, and so on. Very few, if any, candidates walk into your office for an interview prepared to provide that information on the spot. But if they can go home and enter their info onto an easy-to-use candidate portal they can access from any device, they’re much more likely to complete the requirements correctly and swiftly. The faster your applicants complete the “paperwork,” the faster the background check can be done. Make things easy and convenient, and your process will return speedier results. 

Don’t Delay

Don’t wait another day to improve the speed and efficiency of your background check process. Work with your provider to discuss ways to expedite background checks so you can onboard the talent you need to achieve your goals.