Latest / Hiring & Firing with Fexingo: Recruitment, Performance, and Workforce Decisions / How Background Checks Slowed Down Your Hiring
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this logistics company outside Columbus that figured out their background check was adding ten days to the average time to hire. Ten days. And in that window, they lost two candidates to competitors who moved faster. Luna: Ten days just for the background check? That seems like a lot. What were they checking — their entire life story? Lucas: Basically, yeah. They were running a county-level criminal search across every county the candidate had lived in for the past seven years. And they did it sequentially — county by county, one after another. If a candidate had lived in three states, that's three separate requests, each with its own turnaround. Luna: So it's not the background check itself that's slow, it's how they're running it. County-level searches are notoriously slow because they rely on court clerks who might take a week to respond. Lucas: Right. And the company was running these checks after the final interview, after the verbal offer, so the entire hiring process came to a halt. The candidate is excited, they've already told their friends, and then radio silence for two weeks while the check churns. Luna: And in this market, that's a death sentence. Candidates have options. They're not going to sit around for a background check when another company can get them through in a week. Lucas: Exactly. So what did they do? They didn't drop the background check — they redesigned the process. Instead of county-level searches for everyone, they moved to a national database search as a first pass, and then only went county-level if something flagged. Luna: That's a smart triage approach. The national database is instant — it's basically a name-matching tool. If nothing pops, you're done in a day. If something does, then you go deeper. Lucas: And they also started running the check in parallel with the final interview stage, not after. So while the candidate is doing the last round, the background check is already in motion. By the time the team makes the offer, the results are back or nearly back. Luna: So the offer can be made contingent on the check, but the candidate doesn't have to wait. That's a huge difference in candidate experience. Lucas: It cut their time to hire by eight days. And the HR team told me they also saw a drop in candidate dropouts during the offer stage, which is a metric they hadn't even been tracking before. Luna: It's funny — we talk so much about interview structure, skills-based assessments, all those things that happen before the offer. But the background check is this hidden bottleneck that can undo all that good work. Lucas: Yeah, and it's not just about speed. There's a compliance angle too. If you're waiting for the background check to clear before you even talk about the offer, you might be dragging the process out so long that the candidate's references go stale, or their availability changes. Luna: So what's the takeaway for a typical hiring manager? Is it always about the background check, or are there other steps that can clog the pipeline? Lucas: Background checks are a big one, but any step that's done sequentially instead of in parallel can be a culprit. References, for example. If you're waiting for written references to come back before you make an offer, that can add days. Some companies now do reference checks after the offer, contingent on the results. Luna: Right, and that's a shift — making the offer contingent on a few last checks rather than making the candidate wait for everything to clear first. Lucas: And there's another angle: continuous background screening. Some firms now run a baseline check at hiring, and then re-screen employees annually or when they're up for a promotion. That way, the initial check doesn't have to be so exhaustive because you're monitoring ongoing. Luna: Continuous screening — that's more common in regulated industries, like finance or healthcare, but I could see it spreading. It shifts the mindset from a one-time gate to an ongoing trust thing. Lucas: The logistics company I mentioned — they're not in a regulated industry, but they're considering continuous screening for their warehouse managers because those folks have access to high-value inventory. Luna: So it's not just about upfront speed, it's about managing risk over time. That makes sense. Lucas: One thing I want to flag: the national database first-pass isn't perfect. It's a name-based search, so you can get false positives. That's why the county-level follow-up is still important. But you don't need to run the slow search on every single candidate if the fast one comes back clean. Luna: And false positives are a whole other can of worms. If you reject a candidate based on a false positive, you could be facing a discrimination lawsuit. So you have to have a process for disputing and clearing those. Lucas: Right. The company I spoke with actually has a process where if the national database flags something, the candidate gets a chance to explain before they go to the county-level search. They treat it as a conversation, not an accusation. Luna: That's respectful. And it probably helps with candidate experience too — the candidate doesn't feel like they're being judged by a database. Lucas: Yeah, and that's the thing — background checks are often the last impression a candidate has of your process. If it's slow and opaque, they'll remember that. If it's quick and transparent, it can actually be a differentiator. Luna: Have you seen any examples where a fast background check actually became a selling point in the offer? Lucas: I have. There's a tech startup in Austin that brags about their 'lightning background check' in their offer letters. They say it takes less than 24 hours, and they've had candidates mention that as a reason they chose them over a bigger, slower company. Luna: Wow, so it's a talent brand thing too. Speed signals efficiency and respect for the candidate's time. Lucas: Exactly. And it's not just about the check itself. It's about how you communicate during the process. The Columbus company also started sending candidates a text when the background check was initiated, and another when it cleared. That simple step made candidates feel in the loop, even if it took a few days. Luna: A little transparency goes a long way. I've been in hiring processes where I had to chase the recruiter for updates, and it's a terrible feeling. Lucas: Yeah, and that's the thing — these are small changes, but they add up. Triage your background check, run it in parallel, communicate clearly, and you can shave a week off your time to hire without compromising on rigor. Luna: You know, it reminds me of something you said a few episodes ago about how the best hiring processes are the ones that respect the candidate's time as much as your own. Lucas: Absolutely. And that's a philosophy that runs through this whole show, actually. We really believe in sharing these practical, human-centered approaches to hiring, and we deliberately keep this podcast ad-free so we can focus on the substance. Luna: If these conversations have helped you rethink your hiring process, and you want to keep them going, you can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small way to keep this ad-free. Lucas: And we appreciate that, genuinely. But back to background checks — there's one more thing I want to mention, which is the role of automation. Luna: Oh, tell me more. Are we talking AI screening? Lucas: Sort of. Some background check vendors now offer APIs that integrate directly with your applicant tracking system. So as soon as a candidate accepts the offer, the background check is triggered automatically, no manual data entry, no waiting for HR to submit a form. Luna: That's a huge time saver. If you're still manually emailing a PDF to a vendor, you're adding days of lag time for no reason. Lucas: Exactly. And some of these tools can also flag discrepancies in real time, like if the candidate's social security number doesn't match, so you're not waiting until the end to find out there's an issue. Luna: So it's not just about speed, it's about catching problems early before they become a surprise. Lucas: Right. And that's the balance — you want speed, but you also want accuracy. The key is to design a process that achieves both, and that starts with asking yourself where the bottlenecks are in your current workflow. Luna: And maybe timing your background check process from initiation to final decision, just to see how long it actually takes. Lucas: Yeah, measure it. You might be surprised. I've seen companies that thought their background check took two days, but when they actually tracked it, it was eight. You can't fix what you don't measure. Luna: That's a good point to leave on. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. For our listeners, I hope you find one small thing you can tweak in your own hiring process. See you next time.