In a Holiday Hiring Crunch? Try Self-Service Background Checks

With the holidays just around the corner, many employers are looking to fill seasonal positions as quickly as possible. While this year’s hiring crunch seems more subdued than in previous years, economists are still predicting strong seasonal hiring and another surge of urgent job postings.

More people are eager to land seasonal jobs this year, too. (Economists suspect that’s because of higher prices and inflation, which may be driving consumers to look for additional income at a time when they’re most in need of it.) More job applicants could mean additional time spent sifting through resumes for employers already strapped for time in the push to hire holiday help. That makes a fast and easy background check even more important in the screening and onboarding process.

In the sections that follow, we’ll:

• explore what industries and employers are feeling the holiday hiring crunch the most right now (and may benefit from a streamlined screening and onboarding process)
• address the importance of background checks for seasonal hires
• introduce an innovative, self-service tool on our site and describe how it can help companies screen and onboard seasonal employees more quickly and easily than ever
• explain how this online tool works

Looking to fill seasonal positions ASAP? 

What Employers and Industries Face a Holiday Hiring Crunch?

Job postings for holiday help tend to come from the same industries every year, although there can be variation in which employers and industries are hiring the most. This year the “top 20 seasonable jobs by number of ZipRecruiter postings,” according to an October 2022 article in Business Insider, include:

• Delivery and truck drivers
• Diesel technicians
• Warehouse workers and package handlers
• Retail sales associates and assistant store managers
• Bartenders
• Registered nurses and ER nurses

In short, most holiday hires tend to be in the healthcare, hospitality, retail, and transportation industries. But do seasonable employees in these industries really need the same background checks that regular employees require?

Same Background Checks for Seasonal Employees?

It’s a question that some owners and managers naturally might ask— especially in the throes of a holiday hiring crunch—and some businesses do forego the standard screenings to save time and effort. The problem with this approach is that it can leave a company vulnerable to fraud, theft, and other risks that directly affect its bottom line.

Here are just a couple of examples of how shortcutting employee screenings for seasonal candidates can adversely impact business:

• You hire a temporary nurse at your facility to fill in while staff are out over the holidays. In the rush to onboard the new person, you forget to formally check their professional licenses. You soon learn—but only after some serious medical mishaps—that you’ve been duped and the person you’ve hired is impersonating a nurse. Fraud in healthcare, (particularly in nursing homes), is reportedly quite common.

• You’re the owner of a small chain of stores. In the expectation of a surge in customers on Black Friday, you hire a group of new sales associates. Because of the time crunch, you decide not to do background checks. Besides, the candidates seem to have good resumes. One of them is so good at his job that you let him stay on— only to discover later that he was stealing from your inventory.

Like fraud in healthcare, the prevalence of employee theft is surprisingly high. It also can be very damaging to a company’s bottom line: According to at least one source, employee theft accounts for as many as 30 percent of companies that fail.

Lawsuits are another risk if a business chooses not to conduct a sufficient background check when hiring holiday help. If a seasonal employee harms a customer, either financially or physically, that can leave a business open to being sued for “negligent hiring.” A pre-employment background check provides added protection from this claim.

Configure Your Background Check Package and Start Onboarding Online

Now, employers have an online option that can ease the holiday hiring crunch by streamlining the onboarding process. Orange Tree developed this online tool to allow companies to quickly and conveniently find the screening package that is right for them. In a few short steps on our site, employers can now choose either a pre-built package or build a customized package based on the services they need. The result is a faster, easier, and more convenient screening and onboarding process.

Get Started Faster

Our new “marketplace” tool is an online platform that helps employers select the industry-specific background check that they want. We’ve done the research for you and created popular packages by industry. Explore the most popular packages by industry here. 

If you already know what services you want, you can create a customized package in just a few short steps. Build a Custom Package by starting from a simple dropdown menu of services. From there, you can select your preferences a la carte and ensure you have the coverage you need.

Once you’ve selected a pre-built or customized package, you’ll be able to sign a user agreement, and a member of our implementation team will reach out with next steps.

If the holiday hiring crunch is causing stress, we can help. Configure your background screening package now to hire faster.