When it comes to hiring, tons of resources go into finding the right person for the job, and employment screeners are a given. HR typically teams up with the department manager and direct supervisor of the desired position in order to find the best fit possible. And inevitably that means devoting lots of time to extensive employment screeners and screening interviews.
Estimates for the cost of hiring a new employee range from $1,000 to the equivalent of up to 9 months’ salary of said employee (according to SHRM), or more. And it typically takes about 42 days to fill a position.
Regardless of the position, company or industry, everyone agrees that hiring the right employee doesn’t come for free. With that in mind, screening interviews are a must-have at every level.
Hiring the right employee requires time and money, and it’s even more costly to hire the wrong person. That’s why companies are (or should be) comfortable investing in appropriate employment screener tactics when it comes to hiring.
Employment screeners typically refer to the software, interviews, third-party hires and other people and processes put in place to ensure that a new hire is the best possible fit for both the company and the position itself.
Pre-employment screening processes are typically more extensive the more demanding or visible the role.
Below we’ve included the best ways to prepare for a pre screening interview and what to expect during screening interviews.
Part I. How to prepare for your pre screening interview
Before you submit yourself to the pre employment screening process and various screening interviews, there are certain steps that you can take to improve your chances of passing and landing this job. Below we’ve highlighted some of the most important actions you can possibly take.
- Update all properties that you control or have access to and make sure that the following is relevant and accurate for employment screeners:
- Work and academic history
Review your LinkedIn page, website biography or any other places online that include your biographical information. Make sure that the information shared there is as up to date as possible. And if you are applying to the same kinds of jobs across the board, make sure to feature the most relevant and impressive professional and academic experiences first. - Contact information
Similarly, your contact information needs to be up to date in order for potential employers to get in touch with you. Review all sites and profiles that you have access to and make sure that this information is accurate. - Professional objectives
In addition to updating your contact information as well as your work and academic histories, you also need to make sure that your professional objectives are as clear and cohesive as possible across the board. Whether a hiring manager looks at the CV that you emailed them, or reviews your Twitter account, your core professional goals and successes should be pretty clear.
2. Screen your online presence for any potentially damaging or irrelevant content before an employment screener does.
Hopefully you already did this before you started the job application process, but if not, it’s time to get started now! Employment screenings are all about finding reinforcing positive factors (that bolster the right candidate) and rejecting candidates that display red flag behavior.
That’s why you have to screen yourself and get rid of (or bury) any content that could damage your professional prospects.
Your best bet is to use software that scans the current search results for your name, and scans your social media accounts for posts, status updates, comments, images and anything else that could get you rejected during the employment screening process.
At BrandYourself, we’ve built online screening software to help job applicants improve their online reputation before a hiring manager finds a red flag – for more on red flags and positive reinforcing factors, skip ahead to Part II.
Common red flags include examples of the following:
- Unprofessional Behavior
- Unprofessional Communication Style
- Excessive Drinking or Drug Use
- Criminal Behavior of any kind
- Polarizing Views – particularly those related to politics, religion, race and gender.
- Sexually Explicit Content
- Violence or Bullying
- Bigoted Behavior
In addition to avoiding examples of red flag behavior during employment screenings, you must build up a personal brand online that highlights your assets and encourages hiring managers to see you as the strongest candidate. Think about it, 86% of US recruiters and HR professionals say that a “positive online reputation” influences their hiring decisions.
Common Reinforcing factors include:
- Concrete examples of you behaving in a professional manner
- Ability to communicate professionally
- Examples of work appropriate images, photos and videos
- A trail of appropriate engagement online
- Evidence of a life and hobbies outside of work
With this research in hand, we built an entire platform that detects and flags this kind of information and walks users through the process of enhancing their personal brand. This makes passing employment screenings a cinch for our users.
Once you’ve signed up for BrandYourself’s free or Premium DIY online reputation management software, let our technology help you get your online personal brand up to speed in preparation of this employment screener.
Start with the low-hanging fruit by using our software to scan your social media accounts for red flags. Get rid of damaging content that you control using BrandYourself’s SocialScan and CleanImage Technology.
Navigate to the Risk Factors section of the Reputation Builder, and make sure to connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts. After you’ve connected your accounts, BrandYourself’s technology instantly scans these accounts for comments, posts, updates, images, etc that could make you fail an employment screening.
After you’ve cleaned up your social media accounts using BrandYourself’s software, review your personalized Reputation Report to find out how much your online presence is helping or hurting you. Simply click the “Get Your Free Reputation Report” button at sign-up, or navigate to the “Reputation Report” button on your dashboard once you’ve created an account.
Your Reputation Report identifies your:
Reputation Score
This number ranges from 0-800 or “Very Poor to Excellent”. Think of this like a credit score for your online reputation.We’ve spent thousands of hours identifying and researching all of the factors that go into a successful online brand that passes employment screenings and wins other professional and personal opportunities. To learn more about the Reputation Score, visit this post.
Risk Factors
BrandYourself’s software currently scans and flags potential risk factors from your search results, social posts and social images. And soon our software will also include exposed private information in this section.
Personal Brand
This part of your Reputation Report analyzes the effectiveness of your current personal brand based on the number of quality properties that you control and how updated they are. This is a great indicator of how you’ll do during the employment screening process.
Google Results
Your Reputation Report then analyzes the first three pages of Google results that come up for your name. This section identifies Positive, Negative, “Not Me” and unlabeled search results.
Online Audience
This section of your Reputation Report alerts you to who has been looking you up online (based on visits to your BrandYourself profile). This will be a helpful tool during the employment screening process as you’ll likely be able to tell when hiring teams look you up online.
Estimated Impact and where you stand
Here our software shows you the amount of money that you are earning or losing annually based on your online reputation. The technology also calculates how your personal brand stacks up in comparison to other people using BrandYourself’s platform. Both of these numbers should give you incentive to not only improve your personal brand for your upcoming employment screenings, but for meeting your professional and personal goals past landing a job too!
Over time your Reputation Report’s findings will change as you actively take control of your personal brand and follow the recommended high-impact steps in your Action Plan.
3. Build online properties that represent you accurately and professionally
Hopefully you will have begun the process of building out your personal brand before applying to jobs and dealing with employment screeners. But if not, don’t worry. Now is the perfect time to start. Once you’ve cleaned up any red flags that you control, get started building sites and profiles that you want people to find. In order to ensure this, ideally you’ll start with 10-12 properties, but if that’s too overwhelming, at least start with the Big Four.
This includes Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google plus… and don’t forget to add a personal website to the mix too!
Follow best practices for both SEO (search engine optimization) and user experience when it comes to building these properties. If you already own some or all of these properties, make sure to review and improve them with the objective of representing yourself in an accurate and professional way. That doesn’t mean you have to get rid of your personality, but you do want to showcase all of your reinforcing positive factors whenever possible.
4. Study your own CV and any supporting documentation or portfolios
Think about it, this is what the hiring manager knows about you so far. Take a look at all of this information critically so that you can anticipate likely questions and re-familiarize yourself with that first job you had out of college if you haven’t thought about it in a while. You should be able to quickly explain each company, role, value you added and skill set associated with the items of on your CV. Look for any gaps in your resume or choices that you made that may not seem like they lead directly to your current position or stated career objectives. You shouldn’t have to spend much time on this, and make sure you can clearly relate these experiences to the job that you’re applying for.
5. Review the job description
Make sure to review the actual description of the job before employment screeners even enter the picture. Link your past professional and academic experiences and accomplishments to the core requirements of this position. Make it easy for the hiring manager to see the connection, and reinforce that you are a strong candidate.
6. Familiarize yourself with the company
In addition to really understanding the role that you’re going for, show the hiring manager or employment screener your enthusiasm for and understanding of their company. By devoting some time to this during your research, you’ll be able to ask specific questions and make well-informed connections between you and the company because of this.
7. Get to know the executive team, the department you’re applying to and the hiring team
Again, you don’t have to be creepy about the extent of your prep work during the screening interview. But by learning more about the company and the potential team you’ll be working with, you have the opportunity to ask unique pointed questions that demonstrate your interest. It’s also always a good idea to have a sense of who’s who during the interview process – whether you’re doing a screening phone call or are going through round 3 of in-office interviews.
8. Ask for insights from anyone you know who works at the company
If you know anyone who works at the company, ask them some questions about their experience, the company culture and any other tips that may help you decide if you really want to work there. Ask your friend or acquaintance their thoughts on questions you should ask the hiring manager when given the chance. While their experience may be completely different from yours, it could be very helpful to get an inside perspective from someone who already works at your desired company.
9. Keep up with industry news
By keeping up with relevant industry resources and stories, you demonstrate that you are passionate and well-informed about your field as it exists today. Make sure to keep tabs on the most popular sites or sections of respected journals relevant to your field. Additionally, make a point to follow relevant sources, influencers and thought leaders on social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter. This is something that you should already be doing so that you’re as informed as possible about the current conversations going on in your industry. But this is especially important during the interview process as it makes you more attractive as a candidate, and gives you even more to talk about.
Part II. What is a screening?
While the specifics of an employment screening can vary by employer and position, there are typically some common factors that go into weeding out the wrong candidates in order to find the best possible fit.
Usually there are multiple rounds and approaches to scre
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