A la Carte vs. Packages: What’s Best for Your Background Screening Process

Don’t you hate that feeling when you rush and forget something on the way out of the door? If you need the same things every time you leave your home, having everything all in one place, ready to go, can make the process easier. You could say the same could about your background screening process.

Individual orders for positions you regularly hire don’t have to be time-consuming. You could even limit the risk of skipping essential searches. Creating custom background check packages is a great way to address potential inconsistencies with a la carte ordering. Having preset custom packages ready to screen candidate pools is like always having a to-go bag ready.

Sometimes life circumstances change, and you must re-evaluate what’s in your bag. Similarly, even if you currently have screening packages set up, they might benefit from an update. Maybe your hiring process has changed since the latest round of hires, you regularly meet screening obstacles, or you simply suspect your organization has outgrown previous approaches. It may be time to revisit how your screening process could be simplified and improved. Let’s start with the differences between a la carte ordering and package screening options.

What Is the Difference Between A la Carte and Package Screening?

Simply put, a la carte screening services allow organizations to pick and choose their searches on an individual basis for each candidate. Alternatively, custom background packages may enable them to automate parts of the screening process by setting up packages for specific roles, departments, and more.

Organizations may find the best solution is one that can meet their own unique circumstances. For that reason, Verified Credentials offers both a la carte and package options. However, many of our clients benefit in several ways from creating screening packages.

• Consistency: Packages can be preset with specific guidelines, enabling consistent background checks for candidates in the same roles or departments. This simplifies the process by making it the same across the board for everyone in the organization.
• Efficiency: Packages can be selected and quickly ordered without researching what background checks might be required, saving time placing orders.
• Organization: Clients can customize packages with multiple stages throughout the hiring process. Multi-stage screening allows clients to start with the basics, such as ID searches, and then move on to more extensive checks. After candidates pass the initial screening stage, the process moves on to high-level qualification checks.
• Cost savings: Hiring can be expensive, but unnecessary screening add-ons don’t have to contribute. Packages may provide cost breaks that you may not see with a la carte set-ups. If you are ordering unnecessary checks for the role, you are just tossing money away.

Stepping back and carving out some time to create a more automated screening process may save your organization time and money in the long run, not to mention effort and stress.

Are Customized Screening Packages Right for Me?

The flexibility of a la carte ordering may seem ideal at first glance, but it is not without drawbacks. A la carte orders can create issues with consistency when hiring for the same roles, result in unnecessary costs, and can end up taking more time. These potential drawbacks can increase expenses and result in inefficient resource management. One background check may not make a significant difference but imagine repeating the process a thousand or even a hundred times over several years.

If your organization has unique hiring needs or regularly hires for similar positions, preset packages may benefit you. However, one size doesn’t fit every candidate. If you aren’t rehiring a particular candidate pool in the future, a la carte ordering may be better in certain circumstances.

Consider how screening packages could help you with these common situations:

• A rise in a la carte service orders: This may signify that a custom package including consistently used a la carte options may benefit your organization.
• Important searches are often skipped: If your team is accidentally skipping searches for specific roles, a customized or updated screening package may be just what you need to help create consistent results and processes.
• Your organization hires management and c-suite executives: Your organization may benefit by having more detailed preset packages for management and executive roles. For example, hiring management and executive groups may require extra verifications for employment history and degrees, which can be added as a standard executive screening package.
• Your organization hires drivers, accountants, or medical professionals: Positions such as drivers, accountants, and medical professionals may require unique additions. You can pool job-specific checks into separate packages. Technical positions can vary, but you may be looking for more industry-specific searches for certain positions, such as professional license verifications, confirming specialized certifications, or checking less common sources for job-specific history.
• Your organization hires contractors or uses volunteers: Your organization may have different screening and background check needs for contractors and volunteers than it does for the rest of your organization. Determining those needs in advance and having a consistent process across the board may prove beneficial. An order process where specific details are pre-determined can also save time when the package is established and labeled in a custom way for each role.

When viewing your pre-selected packages, you can optimize products and settings for any department, job role, location, and more. Verified Credentials’ packages are 100% configurable to your needs, so you can conveniently convert your hiring requirements into ready-to-order options. Not only that but as your organization evolves, our screening packages can too.

Revisiting Your Screening Packages

Even if your organization already uses background screening packages, it’s worth re-evaluating how you can improve your screening process to better fit your organization’s needs and who you will be hiring. Our research shows that 87% of organizations that use Verified Credentials for background checks use screening packages in some form. However, when asked by Verified Credentials during a recent webcast event, 69% of the participants either couldn’t remember when they last reviewed or had not reviewed their packages in years.

In addition to ease and consistency for hiring managers, building qualification and liability requirements for particular roles into preset packages helps keep practices efficient and reliable. Here are a few questions to consider when deciding whether to re-evaluate your current screening packages:

1. Is your current screening process aligned with your organization’s standards and needs?
2. Has your screening approach changed since the last time you visited screening options?
3. Have the requirements for any of your roles changed since the last time you visited screening options?

If you regularly hire similar candidate pools at your organization, you may want to develop customized packages.

Every organization has different needs. Candidates may have different screening needs too, and one size may not fit all. The good news is that you can always add a la carte checks to any order.

Keeping Up with Your Hiring Needs

We understand that your background check needs may change over time. You aren’t stuck with screening packages. In fact, you can modify packages and settings as needed.

The right structure for your background screening can help make your hiring processes more consistent, cost-effective, reliable, and easier to manage. Look at your employee groups so that you can determine the best way to organize your screening packages and settings.

Are you looking for ways to simplify your screening process? Contact Verified Credentials today to learn how background check packages and other workflow solutions can help.