Pre-Employment Screening Industry Overview
Industry Overview
Due to the increasing costs associated with workplace embezzlement, fraud, violence, and other unethical business practices, the need to manage hiring and personnel risk has never been of greater importance than in today's business environment. The process of verifying past employment, education, and criminal history is an essential facet of many contemporary corporate risk management programs. The pre-employment screening industry is a small, highly fragmented sub-industry of the much larger Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector, a space dominated by a handful of large companies accounting for almost 25% of the industry's total revenue. Total revenue for the pre-employment screening industry is forecasted to be approximately $4 billion in 2007 with the top five playersU.S. Investigations, First Advantage, ChoicePoint, Kroll and ADPaccounting for approximately $900 million in annual revenue. HireRight, Axciom, and Accurate Background are examples of some of the more prominent mid-size companies in the industry.
Pre-Employment Screening
Pre-employment screening is the process of verifying a potential employee's character, general reputation, and personal characteristics. It may include any of the following: criminal background check, investigation of civil records, asset and bankruptcy records, credit reports, and driving records. Background checks also usually include verification of any licenses, education achievements, employment history and personal and professional references.
Pre-employment screening has become an important practice for all employers due to the increasing costs associated with negligent hiring lawsuits and the threat ...
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...n 2005 alone.
HireRight
HireRight is one of the fastest growing mid-sized, private pre-employment screening companies in the U.S., having achieved 343% growth from 2002-2005 as reported by Inc. magazine. HireRight seeks to differentiate itself by partnering with leading enterprise e-recruiting solution providers such as Oracle/PeopleSoft, Vurv, and Deploy Solutions to offer pre-integrated solutions across its more than 50 service offerings, which is more than any other pre-employment screening firm. By offering pre-integrated solutions, the client is able to seamlessly access background screening services directly from their own enterprise system and reduce turnaround time to 48-72 hours in most cases. The company provided its more than 1000 clients with approximately 3.6 million verifications last year and reported revenue estimated at $38 million in 2005.
The use of criminal record databases by employers has greatly increased since the 1990s when the information first became relevant (Appelbaum, 2015). The biggest rise in background searches began after the terrorist attacks in New York City on September 11, 2001. Mr. Uggen, a criminologist at the University of Minnesota, states that there is a problem with criminal background checks considering most employers have no idea what they should be looking for. With every business owner having different concerns about potential applicants, “we haven’t really figured out what a disqualifying offense should be for particular activities (Appelbaum,
Job skills and training can even be investigated by the employer. The employee is to perform services and these services must be done in a certain manner. Someone who is incoherent because of drug abuse cannot be a pilot for example. This is why employers can test to see if characteristics or tendencies would affect performance. An employee may not want to give a urine or blood sample. The employee may not want to include all of their references but this is besides the fact that an employer is entitled to them. More and more employers are starting to feel this way. "A 1996 survey by the American Management Association found 81 percent of major U.S. companies had drug-testing programs at that time compared with 78 percent in 1995 and just 22 percent in 1987." (May 2) The employer has a right to only certain information and the line must also be drawn in the procedure to obtain the information.
The “Ban the Box” is a law that took effect on January 1, 2014, and it inhibits companies from asking about a potential employee’s criminal history on the initial applications for employment (Deitchler, Fliegel, Fitzke, & Mora, 2013). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) endorsed this Ban the Box in that its contemplation of criminal history of arrests or convictions in the Title Ⅶ of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Deitchler, Fliegel, Fitzke, & Mora, 2013). It is directly related to employer’s ability to hire those employees with a criminal past to be compliant with the fair employment requirements. Employers have a balancing act to perform because they should be aware of risks related to negligent hiring. In the case of litigation
Numerous departments use a polygraph, usually known as lie detector, to verify information submitted throughout the application process. Drug tests are routinely administered to check for the presence of illegal substances. Each agency establishes the type of test. Background investigators will review your employment history, character references, academic records, residency history, credit history and criminal history. Applicants can assume to take some sort of physical ability test during the hiring process.
Several years ago, Clemson University was approached by a perspective employer. A business man visited the school and announced that the company wanted to hire some new staff members. In order to be more selective of the persons to get called in for interviews, the man announced an online exam that the students must take. Depending on the results, the company would then get in touch with the individuals.
Furthermore, the screening process is a twofold process. First, each employer needs to ensure background checks and interviews are conducted properly. A background check should consist of filling out a questionnaire with specific questions needing further review. The further review is to have management or a private investigator ask question based off how each applicant answers questions. Also, fingerprinting needs to take place to ensure a wants and warrants check is cleared.
In the advent of online recruitment and staffing, Chern’s must consider to automate Human Resource practices to sort through a astonishing amounts of applications, to find the most ideal candidate. With over 140 stores and around 19,000 full-time and part-time employees, Chern’s business must face a high yield of applications whenever there is a vacancy. Although Chern’s has access to post openings and can receive applications through email, which will keep cost low, this is not an effective method for Chern’s to track applications for being such a massive business. According to Phillips & Gully: “Using technology doesn’t merely mean using the Internet to source and recruit applicants, though. Databases and analytical software have made it substantially easier for companies to gather and organize volumes of information about applicants and employees throughout their careers,...” (Phillips & Gully,
Is it appropriate for employers to test staff for drugs or alcohol? How reliable are these results? Why should some one invade your privacy? Do drug testing determine your skills level for a job? What do drug testing in the work force prove? The arguments against drug testing are it is excessively invasive, may damage relations between employers and employees, and could hamper the recruitment and retention of good staff. In 1986 the Regan administration recommended a drug-testing program for employers. In 1991 The Omnibus Transportation Employee testing act of 1991 were passed. It required mandatory drug testing in trucking and other industries. Over the past 25 years drug testing in the military has increase. Today, approximately 62% of all employers in the US have mandatory drug testing program. Drug testing in the work force have been a very controversial topic ever since. Drug testing should not be in the workplace since it does not measure on the job impairment, do not prevent accidents and is an invasion of privacy.
BioServer Systems (BSS) provides secure web server space to its clients. The company is young but has grown exponentially thanks to its groundbreaking encryption technology that is sought after by many businesses including luring some government clients. Stanley Jausneister owns the company and was able to capitalize on his network of pharmaceutical contacts he amassed from his former career in that industry. A longtime client has recently had to fire one of its employees for attempting to sell pharmaceutical cultures to someone overseas. The client realized that they not only had problems with their background checks but contacted Stanley to see if BSS was indeed conducting background checks that were valid. An analysis of BSS interview process and subsequent background testing will be reviewed.
This chapter has presented some common issues that plague employers around the country. Companies have continued to evolve, they look for ways improve and define job criterions and assessments. These methods establish identifying traits that the best applicant should possess for different types of employment opportunities. It is imperative that the applicant’s rights balance the scales of prescreening. The case overview in this assignment looks at how measuring prescreening test as a condition of employment can create conflicts with the Title VII protected classes and rights of the applicants in this case.
understandable for employers to not want to be exposed to a risk but this does not help
Some companies employ contingent workers to screen potential candidates. Doing so allows both the ca...
When employers seek new employees, they have a variety of external recruiting methods available from which to choose. The method chosen may depend on such factors as budget, desired applicant characteristics, and type of access to potential employees in the labor market. Recruiting decisions should also consider each method’s potential for adverse impact against certain groups of employees. Adverse impact in employee recruitment or selection occurs when a hiring practice intentionally or unintentionally discriminates against a protected group (CSU-Global, 2013). To decrease the likelihood of adverse impact, employers should proactively engage in recruiting activities designed to reach a broad range of potential job applicants.
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