Streamlining the Job Applicant Experience

Good employees are hard to find – and so are qualified applicants. If you think you’ve found the right candidate for a position, you don’t want to wait too long to make a job offer.  These days, job seekers are continuing to interview even after saying “yes” to a prospective employer.

Maybe the grass looks greener on the other side, or the fear of missing out is too strong.  You can’t change any of that, but what you can do is streamline the application process so that you hire the right candidates faster.

Consider the case of a hospital that needs to hire staff but wants job applicants to enter the same information multiple times in their Applicant Tracking System.  It’s frustrating enough to be a medical patient who’s asked to describe your symptoms first to an intake specialist, then to a triage nurse, and finally to an ER doctor.  

Job seekers who lose patience with the hospital’s hiring process don’t have to wait around for emergency care.  They can look elsewhere and find a position where getting hired isn’t so painful. 

Stop the Headaches

Unfortunately, some organizations seem to believe that any type of electronic system is strong enough medicine.  Job seekers just need to paste or upload their resumes, and technology will take care of the rest.  

Yet, copying and pasting text can be time-consuming and error-prone.  Importing a resume seems easier, but the data doesn’t always reach the right fields.  If the education section of a resume winds up in the employment fields, will the job seeker notice?  If not, it can cost you time and money to fix this.

There are also technology-based systems that don’t “talk” to each other.  For example, you might use one system to record education and employment and another system to request consent for background checks.  

Then, when confidential information is collected, it’s stored offshore. If the data is sent overseas, will it remain secure?  Time zone differences and language barriers can complicate and delay communications with both the candidate and the candidate’s employer.  

Better Background Checks

Commercial Investigations (CI) doesn’t offshore background checks, but that’s just the start of what makes us different.  

Unlike some large companies, we won’t put you in the middle of reference checks and make you do all the heavy lifting.  

We make contacts directly and communicate missing information back to the applicant.  We also let applicants know what’s happening, and that helps to keep them engaged so that they’ll stick around during the hiring process.

Employers who work with CI like how we provide reporting as it develops.  

That’s a big difference from background check companies that don’t share anything until a report is complete.  

We also alert you about individual components, such as issues with an applicant’s driving record, rather than flagging an entire application and making you figure out what’s wrong.  Our clients can customize questions for references, and we let candidates self-schedule their drug tests, too.

Speed, Accuracy, and Ease

If you’re concerned about data integrity, we can tell you if an applicant’s educational information wound up in the wrong field.  We can also help protect your business from unscrupulous applicants who fake their educational credentials. 

Other agencies ask job seekers to send in their own diplomas and transcripts. Our team collects this information from the institutions themselves.  When tasks are complete, you’ll receive email notifications so that you don’t need to keep checking on-line.  

With today’s workforce shortages, it’s more important than ever to make a conditional job offer as close to the interview as possible.  Yet, you don’t want to make an offer too quickly, and before a candidate’s background has been thoroughly reviewed.  

Commercial Investigations’ turnaround time is just one-and-a-half business days, and that’s half the industry average.  Compared to the average employee’s first day of pay, a background check with us costs you less. 

Truly, a background check with us is better than a fingerprint check.  You can’t check prints from your phone, but our electronic form is mobile-friendly.  

Although we can’t help you find applicants in today’s tight job market, we can help you make sure you’ve found the right applicant – and hire them before anyone else does. 

Written by Michelle Pyan