A bad hire is costly in many ways. The U.S. Labor Department estimates a bad hire costs up to 30% of that position’s first-year salary. This encompasses the time spent on training and onboarding, lost productivity, recruitment costs, and more. Given that, it’s no wonder so many companies want to ensure they do as much due diligence as possible.
Within that process comes the background check, a process that’s sometimes gotten a bad rap over the years for being convoluted and time-consuming. But when done right, a background check can be a business-enabler—and it can be a win-win for the prospective hire, too. But what does “done right” look like?
The Next Generation of Background Checks
The cold, hard truth is that most background check processes are bad. They take a lot of time, require a lot of work on behalf of both the employer and the prospective employee, and can leave both parties with a not-so-great feeling. But they are important; background checks help validate credentials and reference, and they add measurability and tangibility to a candidate’s experience.
The background check space is crowded and noisy. And while every vendor purports to be better than its competitors, there needs to be a collective acknowledgment that the process is full of friction that can detract from the candidate experience.
The good news is that this doesn’t have to be the case—the next generation of background checks is poised to address many of these historical challenges. Background checks don’t need to be a bad experience, and they don’t need to be a gating factor that holds otherwise qualified people back from getting jobs. You need a streamlined solution that is quick and efficient and that speeds up the process on all sides so you can focus on finding the right person for the job.
Keeping It Positive
This is not just about making the screening process easier by throwing some technology at it. It’s also important to really think through the purpose of a background check and the value you seek to get out of it. You want to create a relationship with the prospective employee that doesn’t feel predicated on distrust or mistrust.
Imagine you’ve interviewed a candidate four times and the person is excited to join the company but then suddenly, you tell him or her “Wait a minute. I need to run a background check on you.” That’s a surefire way to dampen the candidate’s excitement because he or she may feel like you’re saying, “I don’t know if I can trust you yet.” So, this process needs to be made far more frictionless—that means, at least in part, checks that are quick and require little input on the candidate’s part. It also means quickly explaining the routine but necessary nature of such checks.
Another thing to keep in mind—and attitudes are changing around this—is the purpose of a check. For example, are you weeding out any candidate with any sort of criminal record whatsoever? Perhaps it’s time to add more nuance to it; if a candidate has a minor record but it has no impact on the role he or she is going for, does that still matter?
Thinking through your purpose for background screenings will help ensure you’re conducting background checks purposefully, which can go a long way toward not only helping you choose candidates but also improving the candidate experience itself. That can have a major impact on the success of the employees once they join your company. You don’t want these workers to start with a bad taste in their mouth about their new employer; that’s a potential recipe for failure.
The Risk of Bad Hires and the Benefits of Going Wide
Having a purposeful background screening process that’s implemented with thought and care can go a long way toward helping reduce the risk of a bad hire. A previous CareerBuilder survey found that of those who said they’d made a bad hire, 10% hadn’t conducted background checks, and 33% said the hiree had lied about his or her qualifications.
While the pandemic and the ensuing Great Resignation have undoubtedly made hiring harder as employers compete for candidates, that doesn’t mean completely doing away with background checks is necessarily the right answer for your business. The above stats make this clear.
And as employers compete, they can now expand their talent search. Major cities like San Francisco, New York, London, and Toronto are very competitive markets for talent. But with remote work now a standard, you can find talent not only anywhere in America but also anywhere in the world to fill your open positions. In situations in which you can’t meet your candidates in person, background checks provide the added measure of confidence in their identity and abilities. And a check process that yields results quickly increases your chances of securing top talent before a competitor can lure them away.
A Better Candidate Experience
In today’s fiercely competitive candidate search, a quality candidate experience can be a competitive differentiator. On the other hand, a bad hiring process can cost you potential employees, not to mention your reputation. The trick is to conduct background checks with purpose and to reduce the friction on all ends. This helps candidates feel comfortable with the process and helps you feel more confident in their abilities, even if they live thousands of miles away. Ultimately, background checks can help you find that balance between winning prospects over and protecting your company from risk.
Serkan Honeine is the head of revenue at Certn.