Selecting the Optimal Background Check Provider

The economic landscape that we live in today is one of fierce competition to recruit new employees. There are currently an estimated 1 million more job openings than there are people looking for work, according to reporting from CNBC. Thus, the necessity to make things as simple as possible for potential new hires has never been greater. One of the ways to make things somewhat easier is to have an optimal background check provider.

Turnaround Time Is Paramount

Time is of the essence right now, as there are so many job openings available for any given potential hire. The faster the turnaround time on a background check, the better. SHRM.com explains that different types of background screenings have different standard turnaround times based on the information that they uncover:

Although improvements in technology and data-sourcing practices have reduced turnaround times, most standard criminal records searches still take between 24 and 48 hours, screening experts say. A basic criminal search can be done faster, while screens that include employment, education and reference checks will take longer, as will most checks of applicants with international backgrounds.

Obviously, any company that can reliably beat those benchmarks is a company worth paying some attention to. Verify their background screenings and check with previous customers. If you check all of those boxes and everything looks good, move forward with that provider.

Experience Checks

Beyond the standard criminal and educational background check, some companies offer experience checks as well. This is essentially a scan of an applicant’s past employment records to verify if they have the relevant skills. They cannot guarantee that an employee with past experience will be successful in this new role, but past experience does tend to lend itself to future success in the same field. Therefore, it could prove beneficial to also hire the background check company to do some work with experience checks on potential applicants as well.