Accelerating the Pre-Employment Phase for Prospective Hires

Many companies find that the span of activities between offer acceptance and first day on the job is the most difficult to manage segment of the time-to-start continuum. Ensuring that these activities take place in an appropriate sequence and within deadlines requires thoughtful logistical planning and coordination by all parties involved. This 12-page document details how leading staffing organizations organize these tasks so that they are performed with minimal delay and maximum coordination. Human resource departments can use this information to accelerate the pre-employment phase for their prospective hires.

Key Topics
1. Governing mechanisms and policies that promote efficiency and prevent time delays.
2. Methods used to coordinate and ensure timely completion of pre-employment activities such as drug screening, medical exams and I-9 documentation checks.
3. Standardization and process for salary and benefit negotiation.
4. Communication with candidates during the pre-employment phase.

Key Findings
1. Set deadlines for each pre-employment activity to ensure rapid completion by candidates.
- ·At Company U, candidates are told they must accept an offer within five days, after which it expires. Candidates who don’t meet the deadline must reapply for the job.
2. Initiate background checks on promising candidates at or before the offer to determine candidate clearance potential and shorten cycle times.
- For example, the staffing director at one company launches background investigations at the time the applicant confirms an interview.
3. Employ automated email workflow management systems to coordinate involvement of all necessary personnel.
- One benchmark partner uses an “e-recruiting” requisition and applicant tracking system that facilitates communication with all parties associated with particular phases of the hiring process and eliminates the need for keeping track of phone logs or other paperwork.

Methodology
This document was created from a Best Practices, LLC consulting project.

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