Pre-employment screening shows whether or not a candidate is suitable for a given job role. It’s both a legal requirement, and a sensible decision when building a safe and secure place to work.
Fast and accurate pre-employment screening helps you cut admin time and costs by more efficiently filtering your candidates. In this article, the team at Amiqus explore the pre-employment screening process, helping you uncover opportunities to enhance the way you hire.
The pre-employment screening process
Creating a safe, compliant, and trustworthy workplace starts by following a robust pre-employment screening process. The NPSA employment screening guidance outlines key stages in the hiring journey. Here, we break down the steps so you can see what happens and when.
Identity verification
Confirm the candidate is who they say they are through ID verification. This step also covers the candidate’s right to work in the UK, their employment history, and their qualifications.
Legal eligibility
A Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check looks for criminal records. You should also look for information on finances and time spent overseas.
DBS checks can be broken down into Standard, Enhanced, and Enhanced with Barred List. Not every position is eligible for every type of check, so it is important to check which apply to your role.
Reviewing online presence
Although not a legal requirement, a growing number of employers are choosing to look at a candidate’s digital footprint to confirm their eligibility. This could include social media accounts, blog posts, or page follows.
There are limitations involved, so it’s important to ensure your checks don’t cross any legal boundaries. To keep this fair, apply the same criteria to each candidate and only consider information that is relevant to the role.
Sector-specific checks
In regulated environments like finance, law, healthcare, and education, you may need extra checks. The time this takes depends on your sector and the complexity of the role.
See how we support organisations across key sectors >
Medical checks
A candidate may require adjustments or support depending on pre-existing medical conditions. Under the Equality Act 2010, you can only ask health or disability questions in specific circumstances. This could be when they relate to reasonable adjustments or are an essential requirement of the role.
Data protection compliance
Throughout your pre-employment screening process, you must remain compliant with key data protection regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. Under the ICO’s recruitment guidance, candidates should also know what information you’re collecting, why you need it, and how long it will be kept.
The data gathered through your checks should be stored securely. Only keep it for as long as necessary, and avoid collecting anything irrelevant. Other restrictions apply, so it is important to be conscious of how you’re handling data – whether manually or digitally.
How effective pre-employment checks lead to more confident hiring decisions
Effective pre-employment checks mean you can be more confident in the accuracy of your assessments. Whether that’s through more data, stronger analysis, or process automation, ensuring you have an effective system in place enables better hiring decisions.
Traditional pre-employment checks can be time consuming, as they cover a large range of documentation and sources. Keeping track of this mass of information can mean things get lost.
Modern screening methods improve your confidence by centralising all necessary information into a single location. Digital screening platforms can sift and sort this data for you, producing high-level insights in line with your hiring criteria.
As a result, you can:
- Cut time on pre-employment screening by up to 80%
- Explore more sources in greater depth
- Create clear audit trails while enabling greater visibility for candidates
- Reduce admin by consolidating everything into a single digital workflow
- Stay compliant with Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) and UK government guidance
- Make more informed hiring decisions
Digitise your pre-employment screening
Going digital with your pre-employment screening can make the hiring process clearer and easier to manage.
Manual processes can be hard to follow, and may split information across different sources like emails, spreadsheets, and paper forms.
On the other hand, using a single digital workflow keeps everything you need in one easy-to-access place. As a result, you can more easily digest information, compare candidates, and work through each step of your personal hiring process.
Clear, structured screening
Digital pre-employment screening is designed to be clear and easy to follow, for candidates and employers alike. By simplifying the vetting process, you minimise your risk, reduce admin time, and lead to better hiring outcomes.
Our platform offers fast and easy API integrations with applicant tracking and HR systems, meaning you can keep working the way you want. With multiple different checks such as right to work, employee screening, workflow management and more all in one place, the platform supports you throughout your hiring process.
End-to-end pre-employment screening from Amiqus
Modern pre-employment screening is more than a checkbox exercise. It enables smarter, faster processing for candidates – gathering key information into one place, so you can make hiring decisions with confidence.
No matter what stage you’re at with your hiring process, Amiqus are here to help. Our platform is designed for organisations hiring at volume, helping you to match the right candidate with the right role. Find out how a digital screening process could make hiring easier to manage – contact us today.
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