Pre-Employment Screening Background Checks or Research Paper

In my opinion, a company wishing to conduct pre-employment screening should engage the services of a professional and respected service provider. Mathis and Jackson (2010) further advise that "the information provided in criminal record checks should be used judiciously and with caution."

It is also important to note that increasingly, organizations are making use of other cost friendly and convenient methods of accessing past information about job applicants. According to Mathis and Jackson (2010), employers are now making use of Facebook and other online networking sites to obtain personalized information about individuals they are about to hire. Some of the information in this case could involve a job applicant's drug use, sexual activity, etc. (Mathis and Jackson, 2010). It is however important to note that as the authors point out, information obtained via the utilization of such avenues cannot be regarded entirely credible. This is more so the case given that anyone on the internet can post untrue information about others.

Legal Considerations

A company can choose to either conduct pre-employment screening by itself or seek the services of a professional third party service that offers employee pre-employment screening services. One such service is HR ProFile. In the profile page of its Website, the company points out that the basis of its formation was "to provide the best quality, most accurate background checks and drug tests in the country…" (Owens, 2013). It is however important to note that companies must adhere to the provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) whenever they seek information about a job applicant via a third party (Hyman, 2012). Under FCRA, background information being sought from a third party is referred to as a consumer report. As Hyman (2012) further points out, the said consumer report according to FCRA could be oral or written and it could contain a job applicant's creditworthiness, personal characteristics, reputation, etc.

If an employer utilizes the services of a third party to undertake background checks on individuals who have applied for a specified job, FCRA provisions according to Berkowitz (2013) dictate that the candidate/job applicant be made aware of the said background check.The job applicant must also in this case authorize the undertaking by appending his signature on the relevant documents (Berkowitz, 2013).

Conclusion

The relevance of a specific screening exercise is largely dependent on the specifics of a particular job. For instance, information sourced from an individual's driving records is most useful if the job applicant is expected to make use of company vehicles. It should also be noted that pre-employment screening should be used alongside other screening devices such as job interviews. In the final analysis, background checks should be used reasonably and appropriately.

References

Berkowitz, M. (2013). Recruiting and Hiring Advice: The Ins and Outs of Hiring a Consumer Reporting Agency. Retrieved February 21, 2013, from Monster website: http://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/recruiting-hiring-advice/job-screening-techniques/consumer-reporting-agencies.aspx

Hyman, J.T. (2012). The Employer Bill of Rights: A Manager's Guide to Workplace Law. New York, NY: Apress.

Mathis, R.L. & Jackson, J.H. (2010). Human Resource Management (13th ed.). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

Owens, M. (2013). About HR ProFile: Human Resource ProFile. Retrieved February 21, 2013, from the HR ProFile website: http://www.hrprofile.com/our-company/about-hr-profile.html

Society for Human Resource Management -- SHRM (2013). Background Checking -- The Use of Criminal Background Checks in Hiring Decisions. Retrieved February 22, 2013, from the Society for Human Resource Management website: http://www.shrm.org/research/surveyfindings/articles/pages/criminalbackgroundcheck.aspx

United States Department of Labor - DOL (2013). How Does Substance Abuse Impact the Workplace? Retrieved February 21, 2013, from the United States Department of Labor website: http://www.dol.gov/elaws/asp/drugfree/benefits.htm

Walsh, D.J. (2006). Employment Law for Human Resource Practice (2nd ed.). Mason, Ohio: Thamson Higher Education......