Written by Lauren Mackelden, Features Editor, Onrec
Just as recruitment itself has shifted online, background screening has largely abandoned the pens, paperwork and postmen of old and moved into the digital age. This has created many opportunities to integrate screening into the wider recruitment process, explains Traci Canning, senior vice president and MD for EMEA at First Advantage.
“For employers and recruitment agencies using an applicant tracking system (ATS), integration between the ATS and our online screening platform can significantly improve speed and efficiency within the recruitment process. By linking technologies in this way, the information provided in the online application can be fed through to screening, thereby reducing duplication of effort and opportunity for error. In the case of full integration, the recruiter needn’t access the screening platform at all – everything relating to the screening can be managed from within the HR software they’re familiar with.
Far too often, screening is seen as an obstacle on the otherwise smooth journey from candidate application to employee placement. It needn’t be that way… hiring a candidate represents an important trust decision for you or your client’s organisation and therefore screening is an essential step that validates your candidate is who they say they are and has the skills and experience they claim to have.
And the best way to minimise disruption is to start early and complete quickly. (Some companies have even begun ‘light’ screening of candidates at interview stage, rather than waiting until an offer of employment has been made, as is tradition.). That said, conducting pre-employment screening can be complex, time-consuming and difficult – like singing or DIY, many people attempt it but few have the time and expertise to do it properly! For many, outsourcing the screening function reduces cost, shortens turn-around times and ultimately produces a better result.
As the talent pool becomes increasingly globalised, it’s important that your screening program adapts accordingly. Understanding that candidates have lived, worked and studied outside the UK is a crucial first step and performing checks abroad can take longer and be more complex than screening candidates with an entirely domestic history, due to differences in regulation and customs. Some candidates consider phone calls and emails “so 20th century”. So, if additional information is needed, consider communication by text or mobile application updates to ensure quick responses back to the recruiter. Over the next few years, mobile technology will dominate the screening and online recruitment agenda. Candidates expect intuitive and accessible means to navigate through the recruitment process and background screening is no exception.”
Of course one of the more recent checks is to look at social media to check candidates’ past history. Tony Brookes, Sales Director at Vacancy Filler considers this clearly has mixed results and can be down to interpretation, plus he says it tends to be a manual process and consequently time consuming, and also encroaches on the candidates’ privacy and with questionable added-value. However, Brookes does think verifying candidates’ work history against LinkedIn is a useful exercise and if nothing else, can prompt for some interesting interview questions around any discrepancies.
Brookes considers checks could be carried out more effectively by integrating identity and criminal record checking with the recruitment process and ensuring it is built into any online recruitment tools a company uses can greatly assist efficiency - the checks can often be carried out in real time and at relatively low cost. “Because the range and appropriateness of the checks are applicable for certain candidates and not others, it is important to build them from the outset into your recruitment process and system. Having it built in to a job board for example, could provide some basic form of checking but it would not trap all candidates excluding those applying directly to your careers page or by some other means. It may not be role specific either.”
At Vacancy Filler, Brookes says they are seeing a greater uptake of integrated online background checking by employers. “As candidates leave more of an electronic footprint as they go about their daily lives – whether that is through social media or through e-commerce transactions, this data will be more prevalent which can be used for background checking. Currently there is little in the way of universal employment history or sources of educational qualifications with the exception of sector specific databases. We see this changing to be more universally available.”
Steve O’Neil, Sales Director at Security Watchdog, is cautious about the delivery of a fully integrated recruitment process. “At present, the widespread adoption of a fully integrated system is the constant development and upgrading of technology which in turn can cause a lack of compatibility between the integrated platforms.” O’Neil believes it is therefore vital that steps are made to ensure clear and concise collaboration to ensure strict version controls are adhered to.
“Another factor is that a fully integrated recruitment relationship between Applicant Tracking Systems/HR and PES platforms has largely been confined to America due to the online availability of all their data. Adoption within the United Kingdom and EMEA market has been much slower and less widespread as a result of a majority of data collated still being paper based. The good news is that companies are taking the steps to transition across to online data systems rather than fully paper based as before and integrations represent a key part of the future recruitment process, although complete integration between ATS and PES will only be achieved when the pure aggregation of data between the two platforms is viable.” O’Neil considers a central vetting database would be the first stage to a fully integrated system across board, but says a company would have to take the bold move and be willing to be the first to implement it and hope others will follow. He believes this would be a huge risk with the possibility of no reward.
In the next few years O’Neil expects to see more automation and says integrating your platform with PES will become easier, allowing for total integration across recruitment, e-procurement and compliance. As integrated systems become more commonplace he predicts seeing the emphasis switching to shifting data as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Employers must demand data quality
Robert J. Vale, CEO & Co-Founder of ClearStar, Inc. emphasises the need to hire the most qualified candidate, and says the inherent risk in hiring the wrong candidate, has never been greater. “Workplace crime, unethical business practices and misleading résumés are on the rise. The costs of fraud, embezzlement, theft and violence are a multi-billion dollar drain on the US economy. Furthermore, negative publicity associated with negligent hiring – especially as the result of a less than thorough background check – can impact a firm’s reputation (with the case of former Yahoo CEO, Scott Thompson, being an extreme example). In addition, with the slow but steady improvement in the labour market, and the increasing number of cities and counties enacting laws banning companies from asking applicants if they have been convicted of a crime, the background check industry is set to continue to expand – including a proliferation of new providers.
Quality vs speed and price
However, an unfortunate development in the background check industry is that, alongside the growth, there has been a commoditisation process whereby providers are claiming ‘I can do it cheaper, I can do it faster’ – but to achieve this, they’re sacrificing quality. Providers will just check a box rather than look at quality information and quality records. Due to the speed of recruitment and hiring, a very superficial background screen will be conducted, specifically on applicants that have a high impact not only on the revenue of an employer but their brand. You can take two companies that are conducting background screening and one has a 2% hit rate and the other has 6%: the former believes that they’re doing better because they’re hiring people who don’t lie, but in reality they’re just not going deep enough into the data.
Hold background screening companies accountable to increase effectiveness
With background screening performing such a crucial role in recruitment and human capital management – and increasingly so – it is vital that employers demand quality from their provider and that they understand the data that is being checked. It is not just a case of the areas being checked, but the depth – for example, if a provider is conducting a county check, or multiple county checks, an employer should specifically ask for transparency in the quality of that data and how far it goes back. Don’t just accept that it was checked: ask the screening company to provide information such as what are the data sources, what is the frequency and over what time period, and demand that on every report it states how and where that data was acquired.
As an employer, when you are trusting such a critical process to a third party, it is vital that it is conducted correctly. If you sacrifice quality, that is when fraud can emerge. Rather than demanding a result at a cheap price fast, demand quality and transparency – hold the background screening company accountable. Ultimately, it boils down to the difference between an industry and a profession: make sure you are working with a professional and not just buying widgets from an industry.
Furthermore, background screening and verification is no longer conducted just at the point of employment, but is ongoing through the human capital life cycle in a specific company. What employers are increasingly realising is that it isn’t just a question of who the applicant claims to be at the point of hiring: they also want to maintain a level of assurance that the employee continues to represent who they say they are at all times. This demand for transparency amongst the work force at all times is becoming a major driver.”
