In Australia, when we think of a modern hiring process, we immediately think: “high tech.” Things like on-demand access, real-time connectivity, process integration, automation, machine learning, and AI.
And that would be correct because a modernised process is all these things. Yet, where does background screening fit into this high-tech hiring approach?
The answer might surprise you.
Here, we consider today’s modern hiring landscape and how organisations everywhere use technology to conduct better employment background checks that benefit both employers and candidates.
A look back: separate processes with lots of “heavy lifting.”
Hiring processes used to involve a lot of heavy lifting. Manually reviewing stacks of printed resumes and hand-written job applications. Playing phone tag with candidates via phone calls, voicemails, and emails. Meeting candidates in person to complete required forms.
And that’s not including the background check. It was separate from the hiring process.
Everything was slow and disjointed, and there was little consistency or transparency. Hiring teams lacked immediate visibility into a candidate’s status. Meanwhile, candidates were clueless, forced to wait for the employer’s next email or phone call about next steps.
Fortunately, all that has changed. Here’s how.
A modern, holistic approach to screening and hiring.
Hiring has become a streamlined, digital process where most candidate engagement—from application through onboarding—can be managed holistically through a single online portal.
In real-time, hiring managers have instant visibility into and across the hiring process. They can see what stage of the process candidates are at and can quickly pinpoint hang-ups or bottlenecks (for example, missing documents or forms) that might slow down progress.
Background checks play an important role in this modern-day approach. On the one hand, the widespread availability of electronic data enables background check providers to deliver deeper candidate insights than ever before. Things like their criminal history, education, work experience, professional credentials, and more.
On the other hand, high-tech background checks also play another critical role: they seamlessly fill critical gaps in essential hiring information, in less time and with less effort required by hiring teams and candidates. Everything is more accessible, in an instant, at your fingertips.
Put another way, instead of operating as two separate and parallel processes—hiring and background screening—the two can now be integrated and work together symbiotically to simplify everything for all parties involved.
Next, we’ll share a couple of examples.
2 Ideas for optimized, more candidate-friendly hiring.
There are individual background check components like identity verification or a criminal check, and there’s the larger background screening process—the sum of all the individual components—that can drive an employment decision. Tech-forward background checks can power more sophisticated and connected candidate insights, along with a faster, more candidate-centric hiring process.
Here are two smart ideas to consider.
- Instantly confirm candidate identity without delays or friction. Using the information entered by a candidate (via an online hiring portal or mobile-enabled platform), some screening providers can instantly validate the candidate’s identity—a crucial step in moving the hiring process forward. Everything happens behind the scenes, requiring zero effort from the candidate or the employer.
For example, First Advantage offers Next-Gen RightID, a near real-time identity solution that automatically flags potential inconsistencies in a job applicant’s identity. It leverages responsible generative AI and machine learning to recognise potential issues in the information provided (and potentially fraudulent or false identity information) as new candidates submit their information.
At a time when remote interviewing and remote work are popular, an instant identity solution could help protect against the new trend of applicant fraud. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), this happens when scammers try to get a job for nefarious purposes by impersonating real people in interviews sometimes using deepfake technology and/or stolen identity information. Instant identity solutions can help to quickly detect potentially fraudulent applicants and stop them from advancing in the hiring process or putting the business at risk.
- Streamline hiring and create better candidate experiences with integrated background checks. Several technology solutions are available to help streamline hiring, but one of the most prominent is the Applicant Tracking System or ATS. These software systems enable employers to easily post and update job ads to multiple job boards, collect essential information about candidates, view and organise everything in one place, and use that candidate information within other hiring process activities, including—you guessed it—background checks.
Integrating background checks into an ATS is an optimised, candidate-friendly approach to hiring for a few key reasons.
To start, it requires less data entry for busy candidates. When they complete their online job application via the ATS, an integrated background check solution can pull their data from the ATS and use it to auto-populate required fields for the candidate’s background check. It drastically reduces the amount of data entry required by candidates.
Further downstream in the hiring and background check processes, this can help improve overall data integrity by reducing the chance of data entry errors. It can also mean fewer process delays attributed to misspellings, transposed dates, and other common keystroke errors.
Last, it can give candidates sought-after visibility into the background check process since some ATS solutions will automatically share the status of a background check with the candidate. Some will even provide candidates with a link to their background check report.
Knowing this, First Advantage integrates with industry-leading ATS providers, leveraging the technology to drive seamless user experiences that promote smarter hiring and faster onboarding.
Indeed, background screening has come a long way, and it continues to evolve. No longer a sidebar to the hiring process, it’s now integral to an advanced, technology-driven hiring process that helps candidates and employers move from application to onboarding faster, and with less effort.
If you’re ready to create a better, faster candidate journey, First Advantage can help. Get in touch today, or you can learn more here: First Advantage APAC (fadv.com/apac/)
