I don’t know: we don’t do the background check until the employee has said they want the job (by signing a conditional offer) precisely to avoid doing unnecessary background checks. It’s not a cost issue, but a moral one (fairness). When they sign the offer they explicitly agree to a background check.

Obviously they’d be foolish to give notice until the check comes back clean but it’s typically a same day thing.

Never had a problem with a background check that didn’t come up in a reference check anyway. Personally I don’t even care about them except for people who handle money, and would rather only do them for those jobs.