HireRight’s 2018 Small / Medium Business Spotlight Report Reveals Challenges, Strategies for Recruiting Younger Generations

Report Shows That Smaller Companies Lag in Adopting Technologies and Practices to Find, Recruit and Retain Young Talent

HireRight, a leading provider of global employment background checks, drug testing, education verification and electronic Form I-9 and E-Verify solutions, is excited to announce findings from the 2018 Small / Medium Business Spotlight Report.

.@HireRight 2018 Small / Medium Business Spotlight Report finds that smaller companies lag in adopting technologies and practices to find, recruit and retain young talent

Featuring results from the 2018 HireRight Employment Screening Benchmark Report, this Spotlight Report compares micro, small, medium and large companies. It provides insights for business in each category, helping them improve their recruiting and screening processes, and their understanding of the challenges that each company segment faces.

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The report finds that all companies, regardless of size, identify finding and keeping qualified candidates as their most significant talent acquisition and management challenge. However, smaller companies appear less interested than larger organizations in utilizing technology or improving the candidate experience to reach and recruit applicants. This is troubling, as both technology and the candidate experience are important factors for the younger workforce when deciding on where to work:

• 45% of micro companies and 53% of small companies say that they rely on social networking compared to 73% of large companies, while just 25% of micro and 50% of small organizations rely on their corporate website to recruit, attract, and find new employees compared to 80% of large companies.
• Only 15% of micro companies say that they provide a mobile-friendly application and screening process and 23% of micro companies say that they provide candidate friendly emails; less than half the rate of larger companies.
• 36% of micro companies and 31% of small companies say that ensuring a good background check experience for candidates is not a priority for them compared to 13% of large companies.

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“The findings from our 2018 Small and Medium Business Spotlight Report show that companies are not using every tool at their disposal to reach, attract and recruit younger candidates,” said Guy Abramo, chief executive officer at HireRight. “All organizations particularly smaller companies – can improve their recruiting and retention efforts by developing a better understanding of what younger generations are looking for as they enter the workforce. Companies of all sizes should keep in mind that attracting young talent goes beyond monetary compensation and workplace perks.”

When it comes to background screening, companies of all sizes reported that verifying information and procuring quality data are significant challenges. Partnering with a background check company can accelerate time-to-hire, verify backgrounds and reduce screening challenges. This is important because companies off all sizes reported that candidates provide false information:

• 56% of micro companies, 72% of small companies, 78% of medium companies, ad 83% of large companies said up to 20% of their candidates misrepresent information on their resumes.
• Respondents across the board indicated that screening uncovers issues with criminal convictions more than in other areas.
• Different sized companies report finding different issues in their candidates’ backgrounds. Educational credentials were found to be a more significant issue for large companies compared to smaller companies.
• Additionally, companies of different sizes placed an emphasis on various types of background checks differently. Larger organizations conduct criminal, identity, MVR, professional license, credit and fingerprint-based criminal screens more than smaller companies; they also conduct education verifications significantly more often than all smaller organizations.

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Both small and large companies identify criminal and other public record searches as the most prevalent type of pre-hire background checks. With respect to compliance, companies of all sizes report negligent hiring and EEOC compliance as a top concern. As the company size increased, more interest was shown in maintaining EEOC compliance.

The report also found a correlation between company size and electronic storage:

• The smaller the company, the less concerned they are about I-9 audits.
• Larger companies are the most likely to store I-9 forms electronically, 38% compared to just 11% of micro companies. Alternatively, 58% of micro companies report storing I-9 documents on paper compared to 18% of large companies.
• 62% of large companies reported voluntarily use E-Verify, whereas 50% of micro companies report not using E-Verify at all.

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