In the world of HR and recruitment, pre-employment screening is a critical step in the hiring process.
It’s the process of verifying a candidate’s background, skills, and qualifications before making a hiring decision. The importance of this process cannot be overstated, as it helps to ensure that the right people are hired for the right roles. However, traditional manual screening methods can be time-consuming, error-prone, and subject to bias. This is where automation comes in, offering a more efficient, accurate, and objective approach to pre-employment screening.
The hiring process is a time-consuming, costly HR task. Bad hires can lead to high turnover, negatively impacting your organization and requiring you to expend resources on hiring.
Pre-employment screening provides a thorough evaluation of candidates and improves your chances of making the right decision. This detailed article will help teach you what applicant screening is and how to incorporate pre-employment screening into your hiring process to ensure your organization hires the best individuals for open roles.
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What Is Pre-Employment Screening?
Pre-employment screening involves gathering all the information required to make a good hire. This includes identifying candidates that meet predetermined job qualifications and verifying the information they provide.
The pre-employment screening process spans from application review to the final hiring decision. Throughout that time, candidates are screened for the following items:
- Relevant skills and abilities required to be successful in the position
- Personality traits
- Cultural fit
- Educational experience
- Professional experience
- History of drug abuse
- Criminal history
When the time comes to make an offer, thorough pre-employment screening leaves you confident that you’ve selected the most qualified candidate and the best fit for the organization.
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The Importance of Pre-Employment Screening
Pre-employment screening plays a pivotal role in ensuring the quality of hires. It allows recruiters and HR professionals to verify the information provided by candidates, assess their suitability for the role, and mitigate potential risks associated with poor hiring decisions. A thorough screening process can help identify candidates who have the necessary skills and qualifications, align with the company’s culture, and have a clean record, free from any red flags that could potentially harm the organization.
However, despite its importance, pre-employment screening is often a complex and time-consuming process. It involves sifting through a large volume of applications, conducting background checks, verifying qualifications, and assessing the candidate’s fit for the role and the company. This can be a daunting task, especially when dealing with a high number of applicants.
How to prepare for pre-employment screening
Use these six steps to prepare for any pre-employment screening your potential employer might require:
- Run a background check on yourself.
- Report inaccurate information.
- Notify your references.
- Be honest.
- Review your social media.
1. Run a background check on yourself
Ordering background checks on yourself will help you determine what potential employers might observe on your records. Depending on the job, you may want to obtain records from different sources. For example, if you are applying for a position as a delivery driver, consider requesting your driving and motor vehicle records to ensure the information is accurate.
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2. Report inaccurate information
Pre-employment screenings can occasionally produce incorrect data if something was improperly filed. If you discover inaccurate information in your screening, you should report it immediately to the proper authority. You can also notify your potential employer that the screen is incorrect and offer proof of inaccuracy if possible. For example, if you have a common name, a hiring manager may request a report that produces someone else’s information. To prevent this from happening, verify your SSN, current address, and employment history with a potential employer before they ask for a report.
3. Notify your references
As part of a screening, a potential employer may contact your references. You should inform your referees that they should expect a phone call or email from a representative of the company. Notifying your referees can help them prepare for a conversation in which they can accurately verify your work history. Provide your referees with your most recent resume and the job description so they have context for the conversation.
4. Be honest
If there is something in your history that could potentially remove you from the application process, address it with the hiring manager, and explain how you are taking steps to improve. Being honest will demonstrate your trustworthiness to potential employers.
5. Review your social media
Sometimes, recruiters will review your social media accounts during the hiring process. Examine your personal accounts and change your privacy settings if there’s any information that you would prefer to keep private.
Types of pre-employment assessments
Some employers may distribute pre-employment tests. These are objective, standardized ways of gathering information about your ability to perform in the workplace. Common pre-employment assessment types include:
- Personality tests identify your personality traits. These results can help your employer determine if you fit into the workplace culture, and certain traits can indicate better performance in certain roles. For example, salespeople tend to be extroverted and assertive.
- Skills tests measure hard and soft skills. Testing for soft skills can include questions to determine your ability to effectively communicate or problem-solve. Questions about hard skills will usually relate to the role. For example, a test for a computer programmer could include questions about a specific coding language.
- Aptitude tests can measure a wide variety of cognitive abilities, but the most common tests assess critical thinking, attention to detail, or the ability to learn and apply new information.
- Job knowledge tests measure your technical or theoretical expertise in a specific field, such as marketing techniques or accounting principles.
- Integrity tests determine your reliability by asking questions about ethics in the workplace. Common questions include, “Do you often agree with your employer’s policies?” or, “Do you think it is sometimes acceptable to take a long lunch?”
- Emotional intelligence tests show how well you develop relationships and understand emotions, which are abilities you may need in a variety of positions. These tests may ask you to respond with “Agree” or “Disagree” to statements like, “I accept responsibility for my actions,” or “I consider the impact of my decisions on other people.”
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Pre-Employment Screening Tools
There is an abundance of pre-employment screening tools at your disposal and several are free of charge. The following tools can be used to screen applicants.
Search Engines
A search of the candidate’s name on Google, Bing, or any other search engine will populate public information, images, and social media profiles. Include the location of the applicant to increase the chances of finding the correct person’s information.
Social Media
Outside of the impression from interviewing, social media offers insight into the personality of a candidate. Each platform can provide different types of information:
- Delve further into their professional persona on LinkedIn
- Locate short posts or photos of their personality outside of work on Instagram or Facebook. If your candidate has a private account, you may not find much use in these platforms.
Public Records
Government websites at the local, state, and national levels provide public access to different types of records. Through these resources, you can find criminal records, motor vehicle records, and more without paying.
TransUnion ShareAble
TransUnion ShareAbles for Hires helps small business owners conduct timely, thorough pre-employment screening. Shareable includes transparent pricing on their website, so you know exactly how much a background check will cost.
Pre-Employment Screenings Help You Hire the Right Candidate
A thorough pre-employment screening process can save you time and money when hiring for a new role. You may not complete every step included above, depending on the role, but you should gather enough information to make a confident hiring decision.
By reviewing applications, screening initial candidates, interviewing top applicants, and conducting thorough reference and background checks, you have the best chance of pinpointing the right fit for the job.
The Challenges of Manual Pre-Employment Screening
The manual pre-employment screening comes with a set of challenges. It’s a time-consuming process that requires significant resources. HR professionals often have to sift through hundreds, if not thousands, of applications, manually verifying the information provided by each candidate. This not only takes a lot of time but also leaves room for human error and bias.
The manual screening process often relies on the subjective judgment of the HR professional, which can lead to inconsistencies in the screening process. There’s also the challenge of verifying the accuracy of the information provided by candidates. Candidates may embellish their qualifications or omit crucial information, making it difficult for HR professionals to make informed hiring decisions.
The Power of Automation in Pre-Employment Screening
Automation offers a solution to the challenges associated with manual pre-employment screening. By automating the screening process, businesses can streamline their hiring process, reduce errors, and improve efficiency. Automation tools can quickly sift through large volumes of applications, identifying the most qualified candidates based on predefined criteria. This not only saves time but also ensures a more objective and consistent screening process.
Automation can provide more accurate and objective data for decision-making. Automated screening tools can verify the information provided by candidates, conduct background checks, and assess the candidate’s fit for the role and the company. This provides HR professionals with a comprehensive view of each candidate, enabling them to make more informed hiring decisions.
Yoono – Revolutionising Pre-Employment Screening
Yoono is at the forefront of this revolution, offering an automated intelligence service that simplifies the pre-employment screening process. Yoono’s platform allows businesses to automate their screening process, reducing the time and resources spent on manual screening.
With Yoono, businesses can conduct online reputation checks, generate comprehensive reputation reports, and receive automated results. This provides a more accurate and comprehensive view of each candidate, helping businesses make more informed hiring decisions.
Yoono’s platform is designed with ease of use in mind, making it easy for HR professionals to navigate and use. It’s not about replacing the human element in the hiring process, but rather enhancing it with the power of automation and data-driven insights.
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Conclusion
Pre-employment screening is a crucial part of the hiring process, and automating this process can bring numerous benefits. It can save time, reduce errors, and provide a more objective and comprehensive view of each candidate. Tools like Yoono are leading the way in this revolution, offering businesses an efficient and effective way to conduct pre-employment screening. While automation doesn’t replace the human element in the hiring process, it certainly enhances it, allowing HR professionals to make more informed and accurate hiring decisions.
In the competitive world of recruitment, businesses need every advantage they can get. Automating the pre-employment screening process with a tool like Yoono could be the game-changer they need.
