Most screening delays are not caused by the checks themselves, they are caused by the handoffs around them. The single biggest lever is ordering the report the moment a conditional offer is accepted, rather than waiting for a batch or a manual trigger.
Second, collect consent and applicant data through a mobile-friendly flow. Incomplete or mistyped identifiers are the leading cause of stalled reports, because a wrong SSN or date of birth sends a search down the wrong path and forces a re-run.
Third, decouple the fast checks from the slow ones. An SSN trace and national criminal search often return in hours, while a manual employment verification or an international check can take days. Let a candidate move through onboarding on the parts that have cleared, with clear gating on what still must resolve.
Fourth, adjudicate against a written matrix instead of case-by-case debate. When "what counts as disqualifying" is decided in advance, reviewers stop escalating routine reports and decisions become both faster and more consistent, which also strengthens your compliance posture.