Applicantsafe

Making a bad hire can prove to be costly for your business in wasted resources, damage to your reputation, and lower morale among your team. That’s why it is essential for organizations to eliminate every possibility of recruiting an unqualified individual by conducting a comprehensive pre-employment background screening. In fact, 96 percent of the employers surveyed by HR.com reported that their companies conduct at least one type of pre-employment background screening and for good reason, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) estimated that the cost of a bad hire can be as high as $240,000, including other collateral damage such as lowered productivity, lost time to recruiting and training, and impacts on employee morale.

The world we live in is rapidly changing and your background check process should be adapting to these changes. Adapting to new technology is no longer a choice it is essential for the growth of your business. Many teams are working remotely or hiring candidates for remote employment positions, and may not have an opportunity to meet candidates in person. This may open your company up to more risk now, and in the future, as remote work continues to take a foothold. A pre-employment background check can provide information about a job candidate that may inform your hiring decision.

Technology can reduce the time it takes busy hiring managers to screen job candidates. Many companies use an online application process that includes behavioral assessment tools that have been internally validated. The goal is to adopt a robust and efficient hiring system that saves managers time, results in improved quality of hire and drives cost savings through a reduction in paper.

Additionally, many employers are looking to build a contract, temporary, or gig labor force. In fact, a recent Gartner survey revealed that 32 percent of organizations are replacing full-time employees with temporary workers as a cost-saving measure. While this contingent labor may not legally be considered “employees,” they share the same level of liability concerns. So, it becomes essential for businesses to conduct pre-employment verification for these employees— not only to avoid legal complexities but to seamlessly transition them to permanent status.

This situation clearly highlights the need for a solution that can simultaneously digitalize the background check process with legally compliant online applications and allow an applicant to upload documents to streamline the Form I-9 process as well.

This is where ApplicantSafe steps in. Harnessing cutting-edge technology, the company eliminates manual screening and streamlines the hiring process across different verticals, including education, financial, transportation, and insurance. Their solution allows candidates to electronically review and sign their authorizations on a desktop or mobile device securely from the safety of their own homes. These documents are then attached to the candidate record, stored securely with proper date and time stamps. “Several businesses still rely on paper-based tools and forms to source, recruit, and onboard. As a result, they struggle to effectively recruit people who are efficient and can contribute to long-term goals. We are on a mission to provide sound and robust technology-driven solutions that address the complex hiring requirements— even in today’s remote working environment,” says Michael Wenger, CEO, ApplicantSafe.

A Modern Outlook To Pre-Background Checks

ApplicantSafe’s proprietary Automated Workflow Technology (AWT) solution is built on feedback from clients and what they have learned over the years.

It assists recruiters in saving them both time and money by taking off the manual workload to streamline the entire recruiting process. “This is not a one size fits all system but a fully automated system that can be customized to your specific goals,” adds Wenger. It is all about harnessing technology in a powerful and easy-to-use way to literally automate the entire HR experience as it relates to the hiring and compliance process.

We are on a mission to provide sound and robust technology-driven solutions that address the complex hiring requirements— even in today’s remote working environment

AWT easily integrates with clients’ Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to pull applicant data directly from there. Background checks are then run through the system, utilizing the latest and modern technology for speed and accuracy. More importantly, for the clients who do not use an ATS, ApplicantSafe offers an integrated online application tool called QuickApp.

The company has also designed ComplySafe—an online content portal—that provides HR managers with the updated information about state-by-state regulations and guidelines. It plays a vital role for compliance by catapulting the employment screening process and, subsequently, the hiring process. More importantly, new laws are updated in real-time, so businesses do not need to spend a significant amount of time doing it manually. “We also allow clients to have an adjudication matrix housed in the site to assist with creating a compliant and streamlined process throughout the entire organization. Alleviating the need to use multiple sites,” adds Further, the company offers an automated and integrated drug screening solution that enables businesses to automatically order and retrieve drug test results straight through the ApplicantSafe site. That’s not all! Businesses or even the applicant themselves can choose a convenient lab closest to where they live to book and appointment. Our system will than automatically provide a barcoded document via email or text to the applicant for them to provide the lab. “We also have a fully integrated I-9 solution that allows you to create a legal paperless I-9 directly from our system,” Wenger mentions.

ApplicantSafe’s solution also automates the entire pre-adverse and adverse action process with many carefully designed features and built-in-flexibility for HR teams. Every single action is tracked, dated, and time-stamped for auditing purposes—eliminating clients’ concerns about any type of litigation. More importantly, the technology platform is designed to be incredibly simple and easy-to-use for recruiters and candidates. “With ApplicantSafe, candidates can easily authorize their background checks in less than two minutes,” Wenger adds. In addition to authorizing background checks remotely, ApplicantSafe also partners with Form I-9 Compliance to provide employment eligibility verification and Form I-9 compliance. In combination, employers can essentially provide an easy-to-use, fully electronic experience for the compliance portions of their onboarding processes.

Exuding Innovation at Every Step

Apart from the comprehensive solution, what drives ApplicantSafe to spearhead the market is its ability to anticipate the needs of clients. For example, when many court systems went online during the height of the pandemic, there was a clear need to obtain information directly from the court sites in an automated fashion—cutting the turnaround times from days to minutes. Most of the solutions that businesses were utilizing at that time were not capable of addressing these changing demands, but ApplicantSafe quickly jumped into the situation after consulting with their legal advisors.

“Because of the nature of how the records come back, we manually review all hits and clean the raw data to create a more user-friendly report for our clients,” Wenger asserts. “It has become pretty much routine and acceptable throughout the industry. So, it won’t be an overstatement to call us the pioneer in this regard.”

Another example is the way the company performs its verifications. ApplicantSafe used to get a lot of pushback from clients about the costs and lengthy turnaround times associated with employment and education verifications. These verifications took days to successfully complete. The costs were enormous because a lot of employers and institutions used to collaborate with third-party companies to handle their verifications. These companies can charge upwards of $40-$50 dollars per verification, which leads to massive investment. Take large organizations that need to fill multiple positions at once, for instance. For such businesses, the third-party fees alone can add up to the thousands. “We now have a game changing solution that changes the entire landscape by securely having the applicant initiate the verification process directly through their online employee or student portal. This allows clients to shorten the long turnaround times and save the huge fees associated to third party verifications,” Wenger mentions.

Helping Businesses Trace Toxic Employee Behavior

There is no doubt that ApplicantSafe’s software goes beyond the standard modules found on the market today. Our FCRA compliant Social Media search brings the candidate directly into the picture by enabling them to share information with the HR recruiter. As a result, the entire verification process becomes more transparent, and HR Recruiters can view all possible derogatory information—even those listed as private. The employer can also use this tool as a monitoring product that allows the employer and employee to constantly monitor their social media sites for toxic posts that could harm the integrity of the company. This plays a vital role in this politically charged environment we exist in. In fact, a study conducted by Cornerstone OnDemand reveals that just one toxic individual on a team of 20 people—a mere 5 percent of the total group—can lower productivity by as much as 40 percent and make employees on that team 54 percent more likely to leave. It’s much like the saying: one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. “Imagine what would happen if the media finds an offensive tweet made by a C-level exec of a large corporation. Inflammatory posts can—and have—cost companies significantly in terms of revenue and reputation,” he adds.

Alongside such a comprehensive solution, what drives the success of ApplicantSafe is the culture that Wenger has championed over the course of time. “Here, every team member strives to grow together by collaborating with each other, sharing their different ideas and thoughts for solving a particular problem,” Wenger adds. This has enabled the company to help a plethora of businesses revamp their hiring process over the years and comply with ever-evolving regulations during the trying times of Covid.

This spirit of working as a team has enabled ApplicantSafe to face all the challenges of today and explore new avenues of growth. Going forward, they will expand the reach of its solution to conduct a more rigorous background check. They will bring ID Fraud solutions, robust AI-powered tools to eliminate the risk element from the remote hiring process, and advanced monitoring products that will help businesses continuously monitor all their employee. “What I love about working in the risk mitigation arena is that you can develop innovative tools that tackle real-world problems by listening to people and re-thinking out of the box solutions that make their business processes work much more efficient,” concludes Wenger.