Finding great employees is a fundamental challenge for you and your HR team. A new employee must combine traits like honesty, reliability, and integrity with the right skills and experience. And during COVID-19, many employees are hired and work remotely, so you do not have the chance for in-person interactions. Companies struggle to find the right people because they are hiring without the proper tools that can help them confirm prospects’ traits and qualifications.
The solution? Better employment screening tools that quickly narrow hiring searches for skilled, honest, and reliable employees.
With these tools in hand, you can better answer some core questions:
- Is the prospective employee honest and trustworthy? Did the person graduate from Princeton? Did he or she spend 3 years working at Google?
- Will the new hire show up on time and complete his or her work? Do past managers hold this person in high regard?
- Is HR staying in compliance with its hiring and background check practices?
Manual background check processes offer a piecemeal approach that overlooks certain issues. A more robust and technology-based background process will provide you with much more context about an applicant. Tech-based background check methodologies more effectively bridge the gap between a candidate’s résumé and words and the employer’s need to fully answer the key questions.
Find a Value-Added Partner
To streamline the background check and hiring process, HR needs a vendor that functions as a partner, not just a technology provider. Find a screening firm that will provide you with added insights about the screening process. For example, some will provide guidance on how to properly read a background check, including spotting various “red flags” about a prospective employee’s history. A quality firm will fully check educational, employment, driving records, and other data sources to quickly provide you with a snapshot of a prospect’s history. Full screening data give HR teams more context about a candidate’s qualifications and allow them to make more informed hiring decisions.
If you are hiring for a C-level appointment or a staff member who will handle sensitive information, some screening firms also function as private investigators. They might have experience with law enforcement and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) candidate vetting. This strengthens their ability to perform more in-depth checks as needed for any of your high-level roles.
Screen with Automation and Under Compliance
Hiring managers need fast background screening solutions that allow them to move forward quickly with confidence. Their chosen solution should use automation to verify employment and education credentials, which are the two main discrepancies small businesses (SMBs) face with new hires. For example, a formal check can help HR match up a candidate’s time of service with a company, as some prospects extend their period with a certain company in order to avoid referencing another company.
Compliance is also a crucial part of the screening process. Technology tools also play a role by automatically providing the right consent forms for the specific state and municipal level. HR professionals can rely on this process to cover their compliance standards instead of attempting to become experts on various regional compliance regs. Employee screening tools also streamline criminal history compliance. For example, some states mandate that companies cannot investigate a candidate’s criminal past until after the person is interviewed and considered for a position. Screening tools can identify the type of crime involved, so if it was a nonviolent offense, it provides HR with the opportunity to still consider the candidate. Or, if company policy prohibits any hires with a record, HR can still refer the person to a nonprofit organization that employs people with criminal histories. This is especially important for people of color, who are disproportionately negatively impacted by criminal records and hiring decisions.
The Takeaway
For SMBs, the ability to hire and retain talent is often the difference between business success and failure. HR personnel building a quality team should expand or improve their usage of employment screening technology. Used properly, these platforms streamline the vetting process by asking the right questions, keeping your business in compliance, and finding great employees.
Kenneth Coats is an entrepreneur, who founded and operates KENTECH and eKnowID. With his two businesses, he utilizes his relationship capital and situational knowledge to secure diverse business opportunities for all clients and partners. Coats has spent years as an entrepreneur and executive in the technology field with expertise across many industry verticals. He founded KENTECH, an award winning investigative background check technology company, and eKnowID, a licensed P.I. firm used by trusted employers nationwide that helps them make informative and clear hiring decisions.