Pre-Screening Employees: Here’s What to Know

Your company is only as good as its employees—and locating the best employees can be challenging. It’s not enough to find someone who is technically skilled and competent, though that’s obviously valuable. It’s also important to find employees who provide a good cultural fit—and that surely means employees who possess great honesty and personal integrity.

 

When you hire the wrong people—people without those personal virtues—it puts you at risk not only for lost efficiency, but for even more dire consequences, such as workplace theft. The question is, what can employers do to vet their job candidates for true honesty? One important step is pre-employment screening.

 

Pre-Employment Screenings in a Nutshell

But what do we mean when we talk about pre-screening employees? Is this just another way of discussing background checks?

 

A criminal background check can certainly be part of the pre-employment screening process. However, the process might also entail drug testing, employment verification, and reference checks. Sometimes, pre-employment skills tests are also administered. All of these checks and tests are run in advance of any hiring offer being made, and they allow you to feel confident in the personal integrity of the people you’re hiring.

 

Note that, in some cases, companies will do all their pre-screening in-house—but most of the time, it’s outsourced to an external investigation company. That’s because proper pre-employment screening takes resources and expertise that most firms simply don’t have in place.

 

Pre-Employment Basics

To reiterate, pre-employment screening can encompass several different components—and some of the most common ones include:

• Verification of employment history
• Verification of educational history
• Social Security checks
• Criminal record checks
• Public records searches
• Professional reference checks
• Licensure/professional certification checks

 

Clearly, thorough pre-employment testing can be wide-ranging, which is another reason why it’s often better leaving it to the pros.

 

Why Pre-Screen?

Indeed, when done properly, pre-employment screening can yield a number of benefits—among them:

• You can protect your organization and your brand from bad hires, and safeguard against all the risks that a bad hire can bring.
• You can significantly reduce the time and money associated with the hiring and on-boarding process, ensuring you get things right the first
• You can assure customers, investors, and other employees that you have truly done your due diligence.
• You can confirm that the employees who look good on paper are indeed good fits for your business.

 

The bottom line: Through pre-employment screening, you can make your hiring process far more rigorous and exacting. In doing so, you significantly decrease the risk of hiring the wrong person. Pre-employment screening helps protect your company, your employees, and your customers from dangerous individuals, and it’s not at all something to take lightly.

 

For an expert approach, we encourage you to contact National Business Investigations today. Find out more about our employee pre-screening services in California!