Pre-employment checks: Guidance for organisations

This guide from CIPD highlights the key checks carried out during the recruitment process and explains the risks and practical considerations to be taken into account when offering employment.

As traditional recruitment practices continue to evolve, partly driven by the development of technology, organisations need to ensure that they follow pre-employment checking procedures that are both legal and ethical.  

This guide, written in association with HR-inform, highlights the key checks that most organisations will carry out during their recruitment process, including right-to-work checks, criminal record checks, medical checks, reference checks and online and social media checks. The guidance also includes case studies that outline the considerations that need to be made when conducting pre-employment checks. 

Reasons for doing pre-employment checks

Carrying out pre-employment checks, or ‘vetting’ a candidate, is an important part of the recruitment process, whereby organisations consider whether a candidate is eligible for a job role.  

With the selection of candidates focusing on their suitability for the job role, many organisations carry out pre-employment checks to safeguard their business from any negative impact caused by the recruitment of an individual. Vetting is a key part of due diligence carried out by HR to ensure a candidate will not bring a company into disrepute, or cause difficulties with any colleagues, customers or suppliers. There are also legal requirements placed on organisations to carry out certain pre-employment checks, for example checking whether candidates have a criminal record that prevents them from being employed in particular roles.  

Standard pre-employment due diligence will usually require organisations to undertake the following checks:  

As candidates continue to embrace technology to create an online profile, more organisations are using online and social media checks during their vetting process, including reviewing professional sites such as LinkedIn. There are risks associated with carrying out such checks and organisations need to ensure they are not falling foul of laws which are equally applicable to information received offline and that which is accessible on the internet. This is explored in more detail in the ‘Online and social media checks’ section.  

The risks organisations will wish to guard themselves against by vetting will vary across different sectors, and between organisations.  

For example:  

• in the retail sector, employee theft can occur and organisations will want to limit the risk of selecting a dishonest applicant.  
• NHS Employers publishes NHS Employment Check Standards, which specify the checks that have to be carried out before employing staff in NHS positions across England. A failure to meet these standards could result in risks to the health and safety of service users, and have an impact on the organisation’s regulatory compliance.  
• the Code of Practice on the Security screening of individuals employed in a security environment (BS7858) applies standards for security screening of staff, including the requirement to carry out financial checks.  

The specific checks an organisation requires may include reviewing an individuals’ background in areas other than employment, including, for example, identity, driving licence, address and credit checks. The type of role, sector and organisation will help to determine which specific checks are beneficial; for example, a credit check is likely to be necessary to determine suitability for a management role within a charity, but may be deemed unnecessary for a teaching role in the education sector. It’s important to ensure any checks are proportionate to the role being recruited for. 

The decision whether to recruit a particular candidate should be focused on finding the most suitable person for the job, taking into account all the available evidence, including that found during vetting. Negative factors that may reflect on the candidate’s suitability could include:  

• theft  
• assault  
• fraud  
• failure to observe safety requirements  
• bankruptcy proceedings.  

Details of specific disciplinary offences may also provide reasons for the organisation to consider the candidate is unsuitable. For example, an organisation within the construction sector may consider a candidate to be unsuitable if there are previous incidents of:  

• fighting 
• having a mobile phone on site when expressly prohibited by health and safety rules  
• failing a drugs or alcohol test 
• misuse of access cards.  

Depending on the role in question, the particular factors that establish suitability may be more subjective or subtle. For example, when looking to hire a senior employee, organisations will often wish to employ a candidate who shares the organisation’s values and can demonstrate they are capable of strategic thinking and strong leadership. However, while cultural fit is a valid consideration it’s vital that organisations remain mindful of anti-discrimination law. 

Case study

As an example, throughout this guide we will use a case study based on a fictional organisation, IHR Construction Ltd. This company is a regional building firm offering a wide range of construction works, including maintenance, developments and adaptations. The company also offers construction contractors to provide specialist services to clients.  

Because of an increase in building demand within the region, the organisation’s HR team is looking to carry out a recruitment campaign to expand their employee numbers in different areas of the organisation.  

Based on past experience, the HR team wishes to carry out full due diligence, including pre-employment checks, to avoid picking unsuitable candidates. This has previously led to costly customer complaints and a number of employees leaving shortly after their employment commenced. 

Preventing false information

The behaviour of candidates when submitting a CV or job application is regularly reviewed by recruitment and labour bodies, with a survey by YouGov revealing that 10% of respondents had lied on their CV.  

Inaccurate information can be provided to organisations in many areas on candidate documentation through, for example, overinflating experience, increasing the number of qualifications achieved or providing false details for references (as in the case of Francis-McGann v West Atlantic UK Limited ET case no 1303361/2017, where the employee used a fictional Star Wars character as a referee).  

Organisations will be keen to receive true and accurate information so that they can carry out a proper assessment of a candidate’s suitability. Whilst some candidates may think a ‘white lie’ is acceptable, there is the potential that this could have a greater impact on their future employment than they think. For example, embellishing training courses that the candidate has undertaken may not seem a serious falsity, but it could lead to the organisation deciding not to repeat a crucial training session because they believe this has been completed previously. The impact of this minor embellishment on the organisation, and others, may be significant and it also reflects negatively on the character of the candidate. 

To help prevent receiving false information, organisations can require candidates to sign a formal declaration in their application as a deterrent. An example declaration could read:  

‘I confirm that the above information is complete and correct and that any untrue or misleading information will give my employer the right to terminate any employment offered. I understand that any offer of employment is subject to the Company being satisfied with the results of a series of relevant checks, including references, eligibility to work in the UK, criminal convictions, probationary period and a medical report (in line with the operation of the Equality Act 2010).’  

Organisations can access the CIFAS Staff Fraud Database to report incidents of staff fraud. Once reported, prospective employers can access the database to check candidates have no reported cases of carrying out fraud in previous organisations. 

Key points

• Recruitment decisions should be based on all available information that is received during the recruitment process.  
• Any negative information relied on when making a decision should be supported by factual evidence, not based on subjective impressions or opinions.  
• The focus should be on the suitability of the individual to carry out the particular role.  
• Organisations should design their due diligence process to avoid specific risks to their business. 

For more information about The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, visit www.cipd.org/uk