Conducting criminal background checks on prospective employees is a crucial part of any hiring process to help build confidence in your hiring decisions. Turnaround times from start to finish vary significantly by the type of searches needed, the provider you choose, and the speed at which the candidate provides the required information.
While most employers want the quickest possible turnaround, it’s also important for the screening to be thorough and consistent to help mitigate risk later on.
To understand turnaround time, it’s important to recognize that there are multiple elements to pre-employment screening. Depending on the organization and its preferences and policies, as well as the industry and job responsibilities, background screening programs may be comprised of these common services:
- Digital identity
- Criminal background checks
- Reference checks
- Employment and/or education verifications
- Motor vehicle record searches
- Drug screening
- Other background check services
All of these services are important, and while they can run concurrently, they are independent of each other.
Leveraging Innovative Technology When Available to Accelerate Hiring
An effective background screening provider will employ the tools to help mitigate identity fraud, giving you confidence that the person you’re about to screen is who they say they are.
Conducting digital identity before a background check begins is an important first step in the hiring process. Performing digital identity can help to facilitate faster and more thorough screening results because it pre-populates identity data into the background check, reducing delays associated with incorrect or incomplete information.
A best practice for conducting US criminal background checks is to research the county courts where an individual has resided over the course of their adult life. There are over 3,240 counties and county equivalents in the United States, and unfortunately there is no reliable centralized database of county criminal records.
First Advantage uses a combination of our proprietary CourtDirectTM technology, which grants us digital access to 90% of the US criminal records we search, and our own in-house team of court researchers to manually retrieve records when necessary. By owning our own processes and automating where possible, we keep the focus on our customers. This is key to how we avoid preventable delays and deliver on both speed and consistency.
Unavoidable delays still happen in the criminal check process; in some counties, digital record access is not permitted and a visit to the court is required. Courts can require their own clerks to do the research, limiting availability and further increasing turnaround time. Additionally, when a criminal record is found, it may require further research at the court, which delays the delivery of results.
When it comes to education and employment verifications, results typically are returned within one to three days. First Advantage leverages automation technology like standardized data collection using prefill and tech-enabled contact research in our verification processes to help eliminate preventable delays.
Unavoidable delays can be a part of verifications. They often rely on the response of the verifying source, and this can be a common source of delay for these services. If a past employer doesn’t respond to a request in a timely matter, employment verification results will take longer. Education verifications, especially for high schools, can be delayed during summer months or holidays, or when the school verification processes require use of mail.
At First Advantage, we’re proud of our dedication to innovative technology that helps us deliver industry-leading turnaround times for our background checks. Approximately 90% of criminal searches we perform in the US are completed the very same day they’re submitted. When delays do occur, we partner closely with our customers to help work through them as quickly as possible.
Candidate Experience is Paramount
It’s important to remember that even those who have nothing to hide get anxious about the background screening process, especially when delays occur, so being transparent with your candidates is essential. Communicate that you have a process in place to create a positive and fast experience for them, and let them know how long it generally takes to complete the background check process.
Candidates can complete their portion of the background check easily and quickly within our candidate experience. The intuitive, mobile-first design gives candidates on-the-go access from any device, anywhere, anytime, helping to minimize their time spent on the screening process.
It’s also worth noting that as the employer, you can and should expect assistance from your background screening provider. They should be communicating delays to you in a timely matter, letting you know the nature of the delay, how to minimize the occurrence of delays while maintaining accuracy and speed, when you can expect to see the results, and ultimately how to create a pleasant experience for the candidate. If you suspect the delays are due to your provider, ask for complete logs which detail a timeline of all actions taken to complete the search.
Background checks are an important undertaking for any employer. When they are done right, they become essential building blocks to hiring smarter and onboarding faster.
Learn more about First Advantage’s background check solutions.
