Pre-Employment Screening
Are you a recruiter who would like to check the facts in your candidate’s CVs?
Would you like to verify your candidate’s international degrees in agreement with international data protection regulations?
Are you looking for a smart digital PES-solution, which focusses on candidate experience?
SIGNUM Consulting covers all of this and much more. As independent service providers our PES-analysts examine the candidate data that is relevant, abiding by EU-GDPR and international data protection legislation.
The pre-employment screening takes place only if the candidate consents to it and the whole process is absolutely transparent.
As a consequence, PES builds a solid foundation of trust.
Advantages
CV and self-description on business-networks are self-declarations. Using PES-instruments the qualifications of candidates can be verified objectively and challenges of the international labour market e.g., internationally varying degree titles, are met appropriately. Furthermore, with your recruitment decisions you as a recruiter contribute important values to your company and ensure the compliance with rules and laws in regard to the due diligence of your employer. In a nutshell – PES brings many advantages:
- Objective examination of education and career steps
- Verification of digital documents
- Save time on plausibility check
- Remote (contactless), quick procedure
- Examine integrity via compliance checks
- Proof of employee checks for audits, TISAX (Trusted Information Security Assessment Exchange) and ISO27001
Digital Recruiting Process
Are you keen on improving your time-to-hire and already working with e-recruiting tools? We are constantly working on automatizing our verification processes, looking for quick and compliant solutions to complete candidate checks in minimum time.
HR departments in banking & insurance, chemical industries, pharmaceuticals, automotive, IT and government bodies as well as job agencies use SIGNUM Consulting’s high level of competence and service declaring their satisfaction with quality and processing time of the screenings.
SIGNUM`s Approach
Various stakeholders from several departments must be considered to make the introduction of Pre-Employment Screening a success. Departments such as HR, data protection, IT, Legal and works council should be involved.
SIGNUM Consulting supports you with an established four-point-plan for the effective implementation of pre-employment screening in your recruitment process.
Pre-Employment Screening and the EU-DSGVO
Transparency of processes as well as a consent form signed by the candidate are the pre-conditions for a successful pre-employment screening.
Renowned reference clients appreciate our international expertise and the processing of data in accordance with EU-GDPR. The established PES-Online-Portals are audited every year by DAX-companies and financial institutions.
We offer workshops on the legal basis of pre-employment screening, please contact us for further information.
Service Portfolio
SIGNUM Consulting offers all pre-employment checks that are legal in Europe and Germany. These can be combined individually according to your risk assessment of job positions and company departments. It is recommended to select screening levels according to the company’s profile as well as specifying the depth and scale of the examination.
SIGNUM Consulting’s pre-employments screening includes:
Institutions are contacted personally or – where applicable – databases searched in order to verify the data provided by the applicant in his or her C.V. regarding the education period, the achieved degree and the field of studies
Former employers (usually the HR department) are asked personally to verify information regarding the timeframe of the employment and the position held by the applicant. In principle, current employers are not contacted unless the applicant or the client explicitly agree to it.
The verification of business registration is conducted by contacting responsible local authorities (e. g. trade licencing offices).
Our analysts conduct reference interviews with the help of customizable questionnaires; the reference person is asked to give a personal reference for the applicant.
The media and internet research is generally done in publicly accessible sources and in compliance with the clients right to put questions. The report summarizes all positive / negative entries that are relevant for the future activity. The aim is to identify negative entries that may result in a reputation damage for the client. Special attention is paid to international media and contributions in the respective local language.
Official authorities are asked to verify the candidate’s residential address.
If the candidate provides a high-quality digital copy of his identification document it can be verified using the standard security features.
In this check, the PES-analyst verifies with the responsible foreign authority whether the candidate has a work permit / eligibility to work in the country.
This check is used to verify former and/or current direct company links or management positions of the person in order to identify conflicts of interest. Commercial registers and other official databases in the respective country are used.
Depending on the position applied for by the candidate or the candidate’s future level of responsibility in your company, a Credit Check is run in accordance with the local legislation. SIGNUM Consulting has access to legally authorized databases of credit agencies.
This is a preventive procedure. The candidate’s name will be checked against a total of 1.700 sanction lists, which include e. g. the relevant lists of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as well as lists relevant in Germany which have their legal foundation in the respective money laundering directives of the European Community and the European Union (e.g. EC (CFSP) 2015/1334 EU Terrorism List).
This check examines potential, past and present political connections. International PEP lists are used which relate to Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs).
Within EU-boundaries criminal convictions are compiled in criminal records. This record can be provided in form of a certificate, which the candidate personally applies for at the respective government agency.
Outside the EU, e.g. in the USA, a Criminal Record Check can be performed by SIGNUM Consulting. The existence of a criminal record and the information contained in a criminal record may vary from country to country.
This check summarizes the results of all checks conducted in the candidate’s screening. Furthermore, these results are categorized and analysed. Results and their potential impacts are described to identify risks early (preventively) and evaluate it.
This research determines whether the candidate could negatively influence the reputation and standing of the client through statements and general media presence. The reputation assessment carried out by SIGNUM Consulting includes an in-depth and structured research in publicly available sources.
We are happy to assist you in choosing the Pre-Employment Package that suits your purposes best. Please contact us.
FAQs for Companies
SIGNUM Consulting offers HR managers and other company representatives answers to the most important questions..
The verification of self-reported information of potential employees enables your company to provide a fair application process. Applicants, who try to achieve an advantage through providing incorrect information during the application process, can be identified and excluded. Thus, you reduce the potential safety and liability risks that your business may encounter.
We recommend to inform the applicant in writing and verbally about this standardised procedure during the application process and shortly before signing the contract of employment to create trust and to keep the whole process transparent. Some businesses provide information about the standardised application process on their web page. With regard to the Art. 15 of the European General Data Protection Regulation, the applicant has permission to have access to his or her personal data at any time. Furthermore, he or she has the right to initiate the deletion of sensitive data at any time towards the potential employer & data controller (Art. 17 EU-DSGVO).
In addition, SIGNUM Consulting holds a variety of information sheets, which can be provided as examples on demand.
Signed Statement of Consent and CV / the screening form. Certificate copies and passport copies are required in some countries.
The consent form must be signed on voluntary bases before the contract of employment is made. Usually there are no complications with signing the Statement of Consent as long as it is embedded in a transparent application process and communicated clearly to the potential employee.
No, it is not possible. To start the screening process, the signed Statement of Consents is required. In case of queries, it will be presented in writing to authorities and (education) institutions.
SIGNUM Consulting offers you an online customer platform, if you wish to order a specific volume of screenings p.a. On our platform you can upload orders securely and encrypted. Furthermore, it allows you to follow the whole PES process from its beginning until the report is completed. Your applicants can transfer further documents to us across this platform
Our PES team processes your order within one day. If you request project plans, workshops or implementation support, the processing time depends on your time frame. Furthermore, we offer a solid consulting strategy, training program and guidelines available both for your applicants as well as for any other employee in your business who is involved in the process.
Absolutely, we conduct screenings worldwide every day. However, you must consider that different countries have different legislations and complications may occur. Therefore, the screening package that you select should be adapted to the legal circumstances and cultural differences in the respective country.
According to your requirements SIGNUM Consulting prepares for you an individual quote for our PES screenings, that strictly obey data protection legislation and are ISO-certified. Your options are between single PES-orders and screening packages on national and international levels.
Missing qualifications in employees often remain unnoticed for a long period of time. Trust in the new leading figure can, however, result in major negative consequences. The harm is especially profound when hiring underqualified employees in management positions. Within a short time period large financial losses or image damages can occur.
FAQs for Applicants
Applicants can find answers to the most frequently asked questions during pre-employment screenings here.
You can also download an additional document with all the relevant answers here: Data Protection Statement Candidates.pdf
The verification of personal data provided by the applicant creates a fair application process. The safety of employees and assets is the main purpose of the verification process. The most important reasons for PES are:
Creating mutual trus
Compliance with legal duty of care
Signed Statement of Consent and CV,
in some cases copies of passport and certificates.
Your consent to the processing of a pre-employment-screening (PES) is voluntary. However, please consider that PES is a preventive standardised process embedded in corporate security.
Your Statement of Consent, signed in your own hand, is generally provided to the institutions that we contact in order to verify your relevant CV information. It is important to prove the authenticity and purpose of our verification request. In some cases, also copies of passports and certificates are required. CVs will never be shared with a third party.
We verify the data that is considered relevant by your future employer for fulfilling the tasks of the position that you applied for. Usually this refers to timeframes of occupations, job titles, degrees and addresses.
Firstly, the SIGNUM Consulting PES team contacts the institutions to find out who is responsible for the verification of the data. Then, a verification request is addressed to the respective person which normally includes provision of the signed Statement of Consent.
SIGNUM Consulting will consider this reliably. But it is important to communicate this request early, e.g. as a remark on the Statement of Consent.
No. All data possibly being verified is clearly stated on the Statement of Consent. You agree to these checks with your signature.
Personal data is processed solely for the purpose of verification. Your personal data is treated confidentially and with the utmost care.
According to our client agreement, all personal data will be deleted three months after completion of the report. With regard to the Art. 15 of the European General Data Protection Regulation, the applicant has permission to have access to his or her personal data at any time. Furthermore, he or she has the right to initiate the deletion of sensitive data at any time towards the potential employer & data controller (Art. 17 EU-DSGVO).
Three months after SIGNUM Consulting completed a final report all personal candidate data are deleted from SIGNUM Consulting systems. In case a candidate withdraws their consent to the processing of their personal data during the screening, the client company must cancel the screening as they are the data controllers for the protection of personal candidate data. Consequently, all checks of the screening will be canceled and documented in a final report.
If you would like to know details about the status and content of your screening, please contact the client company, i.e. the company that you applied at. As their service provider SIGNUM Consulting is not authorized to give out information about screenings to candidates.
