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There is some degree of pre-employment screening for most jobs, even if it’s just the very basics of establishing your legal Right to Work in the UK or chasing up references. But for other industries, there are many more hoops to jump through before securing a position. Let’s take a look at the industries which have the highest level of pre-employment vetting requirements.

Financial Services

Banks, insurance companies and credit card providers have some of the toughest pre-employment screening around. The level of screening will vary according to the role and depending on how much access the role would have to customer’s cash or accounts. In addition to the basics of Right to Work and reference checking, many jobs in retail banks or insurance will look for a basic DBS check into an applicant’s criminal record, to weed out anyone with convictions for fraud, theft, or dishonesty. A credit check is usually carried out too, in order to identify people who are in deep financial trouble, and who may be either open to bribery, or tempted to commit theft.

Government Jobs

In terms of working in the public sector, the strictest vetting procedures are reserved for central government jobs. Many people working in roles in government departments will have access to sensitive information, or regular contact with people with a high public profile. Security vetting for these jobs generally will include a detailed criminal records check, and for most roles, applicants will be asked to give details of the family and partner too. Security services will then check the information given to ensure that the applicant is not “on the radar” of the police or security services as a member of an extremist group, or with extremist views. For jobs with MI6, MI5, or the Ministry of Defence, the bar will be set even higher.

Police Jobs

Police vetting is similar to vetting for work in the government. Most police forces in the UK have the vetting form online, so you can see exactly what applicants will be asked. Police recruiters are obviously interested in your criminal record and will also look at your financial situation to make sure you are not vulnerable to bribery. Police forces will also ask applicants about their immediate family, people they live with or close friends, in order to make sure they are not a known associate of a serious criminal. Vetting in police jobs is carried out regularly just in case someone’s situation changes.

Safety Critical Industries

If you want to work in a power station, drive a train, or be an air traffic controller, there are different types of vetting which might apply. Employers in this sector are less interested in your finances, but may have medical testing prior to hiring you, and compulsory random drug and alcohol testing on an ongoing basis. A DBS check is usually not required, beyond the basics of asking about unspent convictions. In some industries though, especially for those working in aviation, additional vetting will be done with the security services.

With an increasingly busy jobs market, employers are often faced with hundreds of applications for every position. It’s quite a task to sort through all of the applications and work out which ones are worth inviting to interview. With a high number of applications containing at best exaggerations and at worst downright lies, how do you spot a dodgy application in amongst the piles of paper or inbox full of emails?

Cover Letter

All serious job hunters know that it’s essential to craft an individual cover letter for each position, explaining exactly how you meet the criteria in the job advert. If someone hasn’t bothered to do that, and appears to be sending out generic letters, then they are either lazy, or not aware of the conventions around job hunting. If you only have a limited pool of candidates then you may choose to overlook a generic letter, but in most cases, these applications should be disregarded.

Spot the Cliché

If your applicant sounds like one of those Apprentice candidates who confidently says they are the best salesperson ever, then what else could they be telling fibs about? Words like “driven”, “passionate” or “results-oriented” are used so frequently that they have lost their meaning. A candidate who uses cliché isn’t necessarily lying, but do they have the evidence in their work experience to back up their claims?

Right Work Experience

Experience will depend on the position – someone recruiting for a graduate training scheme for example will not expect years of relevant experience from someone straight out of university. For other candidates, check that their work experience matches your requirements. Candidates who don’t quite have the required experience shouldn’t be discounted if they are strong in other areas. It’s also wise to check references to confirm that claimed job titles match up to what employers have told you about a candidate’s employment history.

Weird Job Titles

If you are recruiting people from within the same industry, you’re the expert on the terminology used and the terms used to describe jobs. If a candidate is using terms which sound odd or out of place or claiming to have carried out tasks which you do not associate with their previous employer, they might well be telling fibs. Similarly, someone swapping frequently from job to job, often in very different industries, can be an indication that they are either an unreliable employee, or someone who’s economical with the truth.

Interviews are Key

Often, lies can only be uncovered at interview stage. It makes sense to have someone on the interview panel who understands the industry and specifics of the job rather than someone from HR or a different department. A skilled interviewer will soon be able to work out whether a candidate really has done the tasks they are claiming or has exaggerated their role. This can be done in a non-confrontational way, but any discrepancies should be fully investigated and if there’s still a doubt after interview whether a candidate is telling the truth, then it’s probably best not to employ them.

Asking about people’s health and well-being is something which has been in the news often recently, with coverage of whether it is appropriate or not to ask staff about whether or not they have had their Covid-19 vaccination. At the pre-employment stage, employers often shy away from asking any questions about health, absence due to sickness or disability out of fear of falling foul of discrimination legislation. However, employers are allowed to ask about health, and in some cases, ask job applicants to go for a medical before their job offer is confirmed.

Reasonable Adjustments for Disability

Refusing to interview or employ members of staff who have a disability is clear discrimination, but on the other hand, asking about disability can help employers put additional measures in place for support. Most employers will ask about any adjustments which an employee may need to perform their job. There are also specific instances in which asking questions about health is justified. For example, asking someone being employed in a role which requires heavy lifting whether they have an illness which might affect that, or whether someone wanting work as a roofer has a health problem which could stop them climbing ladders or working at height.

Pre-Employment Medicals

The Equality Act, passed in 2010, made it illegal for employers to have a blanket policy of carrying out medicals on anyone who wishes to work for them. As with everything in law however, there are exceptions. Employers are still allowed to send prospective employees for medicals in two situations:

• A Legal Requirement
• Job requires it

For example, someone working as a pilot, cabin crew, or air traffic controller must pass a medical in order to be certified as safe to perform their job. It is therefore entirely reasonable for an airline to require a medical before offering work to a new cabin crew member. The other exception is for work as something like a driver or courier, where insurance companies may demand that employers check their drivers’ eyesight or medical details to ensure that they are safe to be behind the wheel.

What Information Will Be Shared?

Employees are often very concerned about giving employers access to their medical records or sharing information about illnesses or medical history. Most medicals for employment purposes are carried out by external, private companies rather than by individual employers. Medical assessors will be told what job the person is being considered for and will then carry out their assessment on that basis. Results will usually be passed back to the employer on a pass/fail basis, with no details being given about why someone would not be considered for a role. This ensures that the applicant’s medical details remain private.

Employers usually don’t have rights to demand access to a worker’s medical records, at any stage of their employment. This area of employment law is a legal minefield, and employers should always consult with HR experts to make sure that any plans they have for checking or medicals are legal and fair.

Every industry sector has its own vocabulary and jargon. If you’re not up to date with all the different phrases and expressions used, then it’s easy to get lost in confusion about what is actually being said. We’ve put together a handy glossary to help explain some of the most common phrases in plain English.

DBS – DBS stands for Disclosure and Barring Service. This is the organisation in England and Wales which does criminal records checks for people working in that area of the UK. Your employer will be able to let you know whether you need a DBS check or not.

PVG – PVG stands for Protecting Vulnerable Groups and is the name of the system in Scotland for the most detailed level of criminal records checking.

Right to Work Check – this is the legal requirement for employers to check that the people they are employing have the legal right to work in the UK. A right to work check usually involves employers seeing passports to verify nationality.

Screening – Screening is just another word for checking. In some situations, screening is used to mean checks carried out at an earlier stage of the recruitment process, in order to make sure that you’re not wasting time interviewing unsuitable candidates. More frequently however, it’s used to mean the same thing as checking.

Vetting – Again, vetting is another word which means the same as checking or screening. Vetting was formerly used in connection with government or military positions but now is used in a wide range of other situations too.

Verification – Verification just means fact checking, so in an employment context this means looking at facts you have given on your application form or CV and checking to make sure you’ve told the truth.

BPSS – BPSS is Baseline Personnel Security Standard and is the screening which is usually carried out for people working in government departments. For people with access to sensitive data, a higher level of checking might be required.

RICE Framework – the “RICE” acronym covers the basic checking which employers should be doing: Right to Work, Identity, Criminal Record and Employment History.

Background Check – this is a term which isn’t specific and can mean a range of things, from a very quick check into someone’s references, to full-on checking every fact on a CV and running a full credit check.

Credit Check – this is an investigation into someone’s financial history, usually carried out in connection with jobs in banks or other financial services. Employers will always ask for consent before carrying out a credit check.

Security Clearance – government and defence jobs, or roles in police or Armed Forces may use the term “security clearance” instead of vetting or background checking. This process is more about assessing someone’s criminal background, to ensure they don’t pose a security risk.

GDPR – this acronym is the General Data Protection Regulation. GDPR sets out the rules about how your personal information should be stored and processed. In basic terms, it should mean that anything sensitive discovered on a background check should be kept confidential.

One of the main rules when employment screening is to construct a full employment history for your potential employee. This usually means accounting for the last three years, but some employers will want to see an employment history going back five, or even ten years. All the HR advice will talk about looking for gaps in employment history, but how do you go about investigating breaks in employment?

Reasons for Gaps in Employment

There are many reasons why a candidate might have a gap between one job and the next – redundancy, caring responsibilities, extended period of travel, study – so don’t automatically jump to the assumption that the candidate has something to hide. They might have been sent to prison, but it’s probably far more likely that there’s another explanation. Candidates are always advised to account for gaps on their CV, so check the application to make sure they haven’t offered an explanation elsewhere.

Chasing References

People know that employers don’t like to see gaps in employment history and are often tempted to tweak their CV to hide the fact that they were sacked and had a couple of months out of work before finding a new job. Always chase up references from previous employers to confirm dates of employment, and make sure they match with what the candidate has told you. Most former employers will also confirm the job title. Giving candidates the benefit of the doubt is important too, especially when taking an employment history going back five years or longer. People forget exact dates; they might remember that they started at a particular job in the autumn, but if they tell you October and it was really November, that’s of no great concern.

Voluntary and Involuntary Gaps

If you do discover gaps which can’t be accounted for, at interview you are trying to get to the bottom of whether these gaps were voluntary, or involuntary. A voluntary gap would include taking time off to have a baby or care for an older relative, to study or to travel overseas for several months. These reasons are not anything to be concerned about, and candidates are usually happy to detail these gaps on an application.

Involuntary gaps are what employers are more concerned about. An involuntary gap can be due to redundancy, being sacked, or even something as serious as being in prison. Candidates are usually happy to tell employers they were made redundant, less so that they were sacked or went to jail. Previous employers may be happy to give a reason for leaving, others will merely stick to giving the dates of employment with no further comment.

Mind The Gap

Not all gaps on CVs indicate the candidate is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. But some might, and you’re not doing your job properly as a recruiter if you don’t investigate what’s going on. It all helps build the picture of a candidate’s background, and helps you make a more informed choice about who to hire.

Most employers will conduct pre-employment checks on people who are applying to work with their company. The process varies but will almost certainly include a right to work check, along with checks into everything from social media use to credit checking. There aren’t many rules and laws around pre-employment checks, but one generally accepted policy is to get consent from candidates and be clear about what you are checking.

Right to Work Checks

The one exception to getting consent is for Right to Work Checks. This is a government requirement, aimed at stopping illegal workers finding jobs in the UK. Employers who are caught with people working for them who are either not in the UK legally, or who have no right to work here, can be fined up to £20k per worker, or face time in prison. So, every employer in the UK should be asking candidates to bring something with them to interview which proves their nationality or right to work in the UK, such as passport or birth certificate. This isn’t an optional check, and the employer doesn’t have to seek permission for it as they are just complying with their legal requirements.

Pre-Employment Checks – Disclosure

Disclosure checks are also a legal requirement for some jobs, but not all. It’s fairly easy to find out whether the role you are considering will require a DBS check, and if so, at which level. It’s standard practice to state in job advertisements whether a role requires a DBS check, or not. If the role does require a DBS check, then you won’t be able to opt out of this, and your employer will usually ask you to fill the form in as soon as they make a job offer.

Other Pre-Employment Checks

Depending on the role and the company, there may be lots of other checks which an employer chooses to carry out. These might include using an external organisation to fact check a CV, running a credit check, or looking through a candidate’s social media feed. The range of checks an employer will run often depends on the seniority of the position. An entry level position might just involve checking references and a Right to Work Check, whereas a higher-level managerial job will require more in-depth checking. Employers are free to carry out whatever checks they feel are appropriate but it’s good practice, and common courtesy, to get consent from applicants first.

Many employers choose to work with an external company to run pre-employment checks, and these organisations generally have a standard form explaining what checks will be carried out, how out to candidates along with the job offer, with a covering letter making it clear how the results of the checks will affect any job offer. If you are conducting the pre-employment checking in-house, there are template letters which can be downloaded and customised. Just make sure you run any letter past the legal team before sending out.

It’s a buyers’ market when it comes to job hunting at the moment, with dozens – or even hundreds – of people applying for each vacancy, how do you weed out the people who are worth employing from the ones who don’t make the grade? Recruitment is expensive and time-consuming, and making the wrong decision can leave you with other members of staff trying to cover work and being faced with starting the recruitment process all over again. One of the key checks that any employer can do on the people they are hiring is checking references. But what is the most effective way to do this?

When to Check References

There is no right time to check an applicant’s references in the recruitment process. If the role you are trying to fill is high profile or involves a long recruitment process with interviews and assessments, you don’t want to get to the end of the entire process and discover that there is an issue with references. On the other hand, it’s pointless tying up staff time in checking references for dozens of people applying for an entry-level admin position. Most employers take a middle ground and take up references after the first round of interviews, when they are down to the final one or two candidates. It’s good practice to wait until you have made a job offer before contacting current employers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get started on chasing up previous employers or character references.

Written References

Many employers have a standard format for issuing written references which just show the dates of someone’s employment, and their job title. These are often known as “tombstone references”. Employers wish to stick to purely factual references, often to avoid conflicts with previous employees who dispute any opinions given. Character references provided by a family member or friend are also pointless – nobody’s going to give their sister or best friend a bad reference. Similarly, beware of references which are provided by someone on a generic email address such as Gmail or Hotmail. How do you really know that it’s a previous employer who is sending you emails, and not the candidate themselves?

Pick Up the Phone

Often, a better way of getting a real flavour of how someone performed in their previous jobs is to contact an employer directly. People are more likely to speak openly than commit their thoughts to paper or email. Always start the conversation by assuring them that any comments will be treated in confidence. Try to ask open questions; for example, ask a previous employer to talk about a candidate’s role, rather than asking them to confirm in a yes or no answer what the candidate has told you. Previous or current employers are unlikely to want to dish the dirt on a candidate, but it’s a good tactic to ask about reasons for leaving a position, or relationships with co-workers. What a previous employer doesn’t say is sometimes just as important as what they do say, so learn to read between the lines.

Employers are increasingly demanding proof of academic qualifications for the people they hire. Most jobs will now specify a minimum of GCSE qualifications in English and Maths, and for higher level positions there may be a requirement for a specific degree or qualification. But with some surveys suggesting as many as 85% of people lie on their CVs, how can you check that someone really has the qualifications which they are claiming?

Asking for Certificates

One of the easiest ways of verifying that candidates have the qualifications they are claiming is to ask to see originals of exam pass certificates. For younger candidates who have only recently sat exams, this shouldn’t be an issue. But people move house, lose their certificates, or get married and have certificates in a name which doesn’t match their current name. If you decide to have a policy of only employing if you can see original certificates, then state this clearly upfront as candidates may need time to get copies of certificates issued from the exam board or their Higher Education institution. Only ask to see the certificates which are strictly needed – if someone has a degree, do you really need to see their A-level and GCSE passes too?

Foreign Qualifications

Many applicants will have been educated overseas or gone to university abroad. Employers shouldn’t automatically assume that standards overseas are lower as often they are not. However, it does put in an extra layer of difficulty when screeners or employers are not familiar with the institutions or qualifications. If someone is claiming a degree or diploma, nearly all colleges and universities overseas will have some sort of internet presence. Google can often quickly reveal if an institution is genuine or not, and translation software can help you compose a brief email asking for confirmation of study. One thing to be aware of though is that forged certificates and degrees can be bought cheaply, for as little as £20 in some areas of the world. Always conduct due diligence if having a degree is critical to someone’s success.

HEDD – Higher Education Fraud Protection

If you have a candidate who is claiming to have done a degree, HND or HNC in the UK, then rather than asking them to show their degree certificate, employers can check with the HEDD site. There is a cost for checking through HEDD, but with starting prices of £12, it’s a price worth paying to avoid the hassle and expense of getting rid of an unsuitable employee. HEDD will confirm the place of study for any current or past student, tell you the course they were on, give you their final grade, and confirm their dates of attendance. Most universities in the UK are included in the scheme, and there is no fee for checking on the website. Candidates can’t use HEDD to check their own qualifications, it’s purely for employers. Candidates can instead contact their place of education and ask for academic transcriptions, or for a copy degree certificate to be sent out.