Pre-employment Screening Model You Can Trust

Companies must check candidates' employment history more often than ever before. For instance, you wouldn't want to hire someone who steals money for their own use. Hence, you need to screen them before hiring. As with every business, your long-term goal is to reduce costs and prevent candidates from "nicking stuff". On the other hand, it may not always be easy to uncover a candidate's past criminal activity. The good news is that you can take steps to examine an employee during screening.

In summary, this pre-employment screening model (developed by Maier) includes the following four stages:

• Plan: identify the extent of the background check and make clear what warning signals are.

• Search: look for adequate data, examine its quality and reliability.

• Loop: arrange a face-to-face interview with the employee and discuss further any negative notes or evidence obtained.

• Decide: after a careful examination of all the information available, you should decide whether to employ this candidate or not.

Finally, as Maier stated, if you decide not to employ this person, there should be a procedure in place for how senior management may overrule your advice; otherwise, the screening process will not be plausible. Maier also recommends contacting three different company representatives who may decide whether you should employ this individual, regardless of the negative findings. But they must provide you with a reason for this conclusion, and they must be fully accountable for any incidents that may occur in the future.