As the name indicates, pre-employment refers to “prior to employing” or “before hiring” someone for a job, or simply signing a contract for employment. Screening means “full” checking or viewing. So the term pre-employment screening means viewing or checking a person’s history before employing him/her for proposed jobs, or signing any employment contract. The method of such screening is different in different organizations or companies, depending on the status of job/work they are providing and the nature of business/company/organization. However, some of the tools used for screening are similar in most of the organizations e.g. credit check, reference check, history check, criminal check etc. Some of the tools are more important for certain organizations and less important for others, for example drugs check and health check etc.
Pre-employment screening helps an organization a lot in assessing the ability of a person and his/her strength for the growth of the organization. Sometimes an employee becomes quite an opportunity for that organization, helping it in achieving its goals and objectives in a more efficient and effective way.
Consider the case of a company that employs someone for a labor vacancy. The company will be screening his/her health, references, his/her previous work place record, and his/her organizational dealing with his/her clients and colleagues. On the other hand, if a company is hiring someone for a management vacancy, then it will be screening his/her previous employment record along with his credit history check, his criminal record, and his/her behavior with other members of the company (other workers and the owner or “boss” of the company) during the period of employment. The prospective employee’s organizational record will be checked as well to assess the level and quality of his/her skills and anticipate his/her usefulness to the organization in achieving its end tasks.