Key Steps Involved in Pre-Employment Background Verification

Key Steps Involved in Pre-Employment Background Verification

Pre-employment screening is one of the vital aspects of appointing an employee in a company. It makes the process of hiring the right employee less complicated than it actually is.

The days when employers fully banked on an interview to appoint the perfect employee are long gone. With the rise of the social media and mobile workforce, the task of picking up an eligible employee for a particular job role has become even more challenging for businesses at present time. To assuage it, they get the needed assistance through pre-employment screening.

What makes pre-employment screening so important for employers?

Most employers put pre-employment screening into practice to ensure that the selected candidates are of the highest quality. This, they believe, maximises the chances of recruiting much better employees which, in turn, translates into higher productivity and lower employee turnover.

To better understand the significance of this practice, consider what happens when a company employs a worker for its services without proper verification. If it turns out later that they have a criminal history, the former is held responsible for it.

The above example highlights the importance of pre-employment screening in revealing critical information, including the potential risks, associated with a candidate.

Here are some simple pre-employment screening steps that most companies follow before finalising the appointment of a candidate.

  • Background Check: Background check constitutes the basic step of pre-employment screening process. It involves the personal, professional, financial and criminal records of a candidate.
  • Pre-employment Drug Screening: Employers conduct pre-employment drug screening to protect their company from the negative effects of drug-related issues. This step goes a long way towards ensuring a drug-free atmosphere at workplace for a better productivity and performance of the selected employees.
  • Medical Pre-employment Screening: In order to make certain that a selected candidate will discharge their duties related to public safety in an appropriate manner without posing a menace to themselves or others, most employers make a point of carrying out medical pre-employment screening.
  • Personality Testing: Personality testing helps assess the personality of an applicant. Besides, it also comes in handy in evaluating their potential skills, cognitive ability and other character traits. By using this step, most employers weed out the potential problems related to choosing a candidate.
  • Credit Check: This test is used to determine the financial history of a candidate, including their public records, monthly payment histories, trade lines, bankruptcies, collection accounts and so on. However, it does not include the candidate’s credit score. Employers attach a greater degree of importance to these indicators to gauge how responsible a candidate would be while shouldering the financial responsibilities of a company.
  • Social Media information: This is an optional step which may or may not be performed by an employer in practical terms. The rationale behind it is to gain an insight into the character of an employee.

Though pre-employment screening can be an expensive procedure, however it’s a long-term benefit to the businesses and they can outweigh its cost when evaluating these three vital parameters: an employee’s quality, their productivity and their potential to be an asset.

Kann Recruitment Solutions offers digital pre-employment screening services to help you employ a quality workforce for better business outcomes.