MOVING BACKGROUND SCREENING FROM

TACTICAL TO STRATEGIC: FIVE KEY STEPS

May, 2014
Madeline Laurano, Research Director,
Human Capital Management

Report Highlights
p3
The evolution of
background
screening

p5
Selecting the right
screening provider

p7
A case study from
Texas A&M

Although it's considered a tactical area of recruitment,

background screening can have a dramatic impact on a
company's overall recruitment strategy. Organizations that
make a strategic investment in these solutions are able to
expand their global reach, improve the candidate experience,
and strengthen the quality of hires. This report will highlight five
steps for enhancing your approach to background screening.

p8
Key takeaways and
recommendations

2
89% of companies are
investing or planning
to invest in
background
screening solutions.

Moving Background Screening from Tactical to Strategic: Five Key Steps

Background screening is a critical component of any talent

acquisition strategy. Without a standard approach to compiling
and authenticating candidate information, organizations will
lose quality talent and become vulnerable to risk and
compliance issues. In fact, 89% of organizations are investing or
planning to invest in some type of background screening
solution. Despite this high adoption, most companies have not
matured in their use of these tools or measured their value
beyond compliance. As recruitment evolves, HR leaders must
think more strategically about background screening and
consider investing in innovative, transformative solutions. This
report, based on data collected in March 2014, will examine the
steps companies must take to mature in their use of background
screening.
The Business of Background Screening
With 60% of organizations increasing their recruitment activities
this year, hiring the right people is a business priority. Leading
organizations have become less concerned with filling positions
as quickly as possible and more concerned with the caliber of
talent entering the organization. As a result, many companies
are taking a closer look at their talent acquisition strategies in an
effort to identify critical skills, improve the candidate experience
and replace existing tools and technology (Figure 1). These
organizations are facing pressure to make changes in order to
improve efficiencies and align with corporate objectives.

www.aberdeen.com

Moving Background Screening from Tactical to Strategic: Five Key Steps

Figure 1: Top Talent Acquisition Pressures

n=81
Source: Aberdeen Group, March 2014

Background screening is one area of talent acquisition that

companies are beginning to reevaluate. Although it is widely
adopted, most companies are dissatisfied with their current
providers. In fact, only 50% of today's organizations are happy
with their existing background screening solutions compared to
60% in 2013. One reason for this increasing discontent is that
background screening has been an administrative task- a
necessary action for organizations to mitigate risk and stay
compliant. Sixty-one (61%) of companies still do not have a longterm, strategic approach to background screening and often
provide it inconsistently throughout the organization or only for
specific job levels.

50% of companies are

dissatisfied with their
current providers

When Aberdeen asked companies to identify the key drivers for

investing in background screening, reducing time to hire and
getting results in a timely manner trumped improving quality of
hire or achieving business results. As the talent acquisition

www.aberdeen.com

Moving Background Screening from Tactical to Strategic: Five Key Steps

market continues to evolve, organizations must adopt a new

mindset around background screening. They must seek out
providers that will serve as trusted partners -helping to improve
both the tactical as well as the strategic elements of screening
candidates.
Figure 2: Key Drivers for Investing in Background Screening
80%
70%

71%

60%

53%

53%

Measuring
effectiveness

Getting Results in a
timely manner

50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Reducing time to hire

=81
Source: Aberdeen Group, March 2014

The following pages of this report will discuss how leading

companies are leveraging the next generation of background
screening solutions to improve their overall recruitment
function.
Five Key Steps: What Do You Need to Do?
With new regulations and shifts in workforce demographics,
background screening is becoming a complex talent endeavor
and many organizations need guidance in becoming more
strategic in their use of these solutions. Aberdeen identified five
key steps to improve background screening.

www.aberdeen.com

Moving Background Screening from Tactical to Strategic: Five Key Steps

1. Consider a Global Provider: If your organization is not

currently global, there is a good chance that will change
over the next few years. When expanding globally,
organizations must consider providers with a deep
understanding of local regulations, culture and hiring
practices. Currently, 51% of companies have a global
provider for their background screening needs. These
solutions should enable organizations to expand their
global reach and provide candidates with access to
screening information anytime, regardless of location or
time zone. Overall, global organizations must rely on
global providers with demonstrated experience in various
regions of the world. According to Aberdeen's 2013 talent
acquisition research, Best-in-Class organizations are
twice as likely to evaluate providers with expertise in not
only domestic screening but also international criminal
screening, international work eligibility and watch lists
(see Figure 3).
Figure 3: Global Capabilities from a Screening Provider

=81
Source: Aberdeen Group, March 2014

www.aberdeen.com

Moving Background Screening from Tactical to Strategic: Five Key Steps

2. Put the Candidate First: In order to attract top talent,

it is no surprise that organizations need to provide for a
positive candidate experience. One way to achieve this
goal is by communicating consistently with candidates
throughout the hiring process. Surprisingly, nearly 50% of
candidates are not given visibility into their status in the
hiring process. Background screening solutions should
provide companies with accurate information to
confidently communicate with candidates. Another
indicator of a positive candidate experience is trust and
timeliness. Candidates should trust that they are being
screened by a provider that is credible and that the
information gathered is accurate. If a company takes too
long screening a candidate, they will risk losing that
individual to a competitor.
3. Clearly Define Quality of Hire: Strategic talent
acquisition is no longer measured in terms of cost-perhire and time-to-fill. Any organization planning to retain
the talent it worked so hard to acquire, needs to consider
quality above all else. In fact, Best-in-Class organizations
in Aberdeen's 2013 Strategic Talent Acquisition: Adapt or
Fail report cited Quality of Hire as the most critical HR
metric in place today receiving a rating of 4.53 (1 being
the least critical and 5 being the most critical). Quality of
hire ensures that recruiters are more accountable for the
performance of the hire once they are onboard, instead of
simply handing them over to hiring managers. Before
selecting background screening solutions, organizations
must clearly define quality of hire and align their
screening strategy with that criteria.
4. Include Contingent Labor: In order to stay flexible,
organizations are relying more heavily on contingent

www.aberdeen.com

Moving Background Screening from Tactical to Strategic: Five Key Steps

labor. In fact, 53% of Best-in-Class organizations include

contingent workers in their background screening
process. In order to make smarter decisions around
talent, organizations should include contingent in a way
that prepares them and takes into account legal
considerations.
5. Measure the Effectiveness: Talent Acquisition needs
to be evaluated and measured continuously not simply
when a candidate accepts an offer. Furthermore, it needs
to be linked to business outcomes. Very few
organizations (less than 20%) are able to link
organizational profitability / revenue with elements of
talent acquisition (employer branding, sourcing,
screening, assessment, hiring, and onboarding). These
organizations need to ensure that as they revamp their
recruitment strategies, each element of talent acquisition
(including screening) must correlate with corporate
objectives.

Case Study: Texas A&M

As the United States sixth largest university, Texas A&M
screens for over 15,000 positions each year. In 2005, its
HR department decided to eliminate a paper-based
screening system and invest in a leading background
screening provider to improve efficiency, enable better
decision making and ensure quality of hire. Through the
use of a solution provided by First Advantage, Texas A&M
collects critical information, verifies social security
numbers and conducts criminal searches for a wide range
of positions, from senior executives to individuals
working at campus events. Overall, the university was

www.aberdeen.com

Moving Background Screening from Tactical to Strategic: Five Key Steps

able reduce the time required to manually enter

information as well as improve the overall recruitment
function.

What were the key criteria for selecting a provider?

When evaluating providers, Texas A&M wanted to ensure that
the system was easy to use, provided a strong candidate
experience and included global capabilities.
Ease of Use: Instead of simply automating the
cumbersome manual process, Texas A&M looked for a
single system where the university could keep all of their
candidate information, and ultimately selected a solution
that included a notes capability where recruiters and
hiring managers could communicate with each other on
candidate information.
Candidate Experience: The process had to be incredibly
simple for candidates and provide real-time access for
candidates into their status, as well as providing
notifications and communications about the screening
process.
Global: Texas A&M hires faculty from various parts of the
world. The system allows Texas A&M to widen their global
reach and can accommodate different identify types,
different cultural considerations and even different email
providers.

What results were achieved?

Since investing in a strategic background screening partner,
Texas A&M has the information they need to make better
decisions around hires. They have also been able to double the
number of screens they conduct without compromising the
experience of their candidates. The improved efficiency and
www.aberdeen.com

Moving Background Screening from Tactical to Strategic: Five Key Steps

quality of hire have made screening a strategic initiative for

Texas A&M.
Key Takeaways
Over the past few years, an increasing number of providers have
entered the background screening market, but organizations
need to beware of those offering inaccurate information on
candidates and employees and failing to offer long-term results.
For organizations looking to compete for top talent, making the
right decision around their provider has never been more critical.
Organizations today must reevaluate their traditional approach
to background screening and invest in a strategic partner that
will allow them to expand globally, improve the candidate
experience and ensure quality of hire.

For more information on this or other research topics, please visit www.aberdeen.com.

Related Research
Strategic Talent Acquisition: Are You Prepared to Hire
the Best; September 2013
Contingent Labor Management: Strategies and
Solutions for Managing a Flexible Workforce; August
2013

Contingent Workforce Compliance: It's a Full-Time

Job; September 2013
Human Capital Trends 2014: Developing a Critical Eye
for Talent; January 2014

Author: Madeline Laurano, Research Director, Human Capital Management (madeline.laurano@aberdeen.com)

www.aberdeen.com

10

Moving Background Screening from Tactical to Strategic: Five Key Steps

About Aberdeen Group

Aberdeen Group conducts research focused on helping business leaders across sixteen different B2B technology
disciplines improve their performance.
Our process is simple we conduct thousands of surveys every year to identify top performing organizations and
uncover what makes them different. We share these insights back with the market in the form of in-depth research
reports and content assets to help our readers build business plans capable of driving better results with the right
set of tools to help them get there.
This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group. Aberdeen Group's methodologies
provide for objective fact-based research and represent the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless
otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc. and may not be
reproduced, distributed, archived, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent by
Aberdeen Group, Inc.

www.aberdeen.com