Pre-employment screening and recruitment

This section shows you how you can make pre-employment and misconduct screening part of your recruitment process.

Develop a pre-employment screening policy

Your whole pre-employment screening policy should align with your recruitment practices and comply with:

Writing a position description

Before you write a position description, conduct a role-based risk assessment to help you decide what screening checks are needed. All executive roles will require screening checks.

Once you’ve determined what checks you’ll need, include them in the position description. Make sure to add that they’ll need to complete a declaration and consent form (DOCX 153KB) to screen for misconduct.

Or if a candidate can’t use the statutory declaration, they can use the misconduct declaration form (DOCX 137KB).

This helps discourage candidates from:

giving false information
exploiting your process or integrity weaknesses
continuing misconduct in new jobs.

In the position description, you must tell candidates:

how you’re going to screen them
the role’s inherent requirements
the role’s risk level.

In the case of executive roles, you should make clear that all misconduct declarations (whether or not anything is declared) will be validated. Where a candidate has not declared any form of misconduct, employers should validate with:

their current/previous employer (depending on whether they are still employed).

Where a candidate has declared some form of misconduct, employers are expected to validate an applicant’s declaration with:

the relevant employer and their current/previous employer (i.e. to determine if there have been any further matters that were not declared).

Here’s some example text:

—

Officer-level roles

Pre-employment and misconduct screening requirements

This position has the following inherent requirements, which we’ve assessed as having a higher level of risk:

[requirement 1]
[requirement 2]

As part of our recruitment process, preferred candidates must complete a pre-employment misconduct screening declaration and consent form.

Read more about pre-employment misconduct screening at [link] or by calling [XXXX XXXX].

Executive roles

Pre-employment and misconduct screening requirements

This position has the following inherent requirements, which we’ve assessed as having a higher level of risk:

[requirement 1]
[requirement 2]

As part of our recruitment process, preferred candidates must complete a pre-employment misconduct screening declaration and consent form. All declarations forms, including where no misconduct has been declared, will be validated.

Read more about pre-employment misconduct screening at [link] or by calling [XXXX XXXX].

—

Writing job advertisements

General requirements

You must base your job advertisements on the inherent requirements of the role.

Your advertisement must have a statement that tells preferred candidates:

how you use their information
you only screen for relevant misconduct history
they’ll still undergo other checks, such as a police check
where they can read more about this policy, such as this website

If you want to screen more than the preferred candidate, write this in your advertisement and position description. But seek legal advice on how to word this.

Refer to your local recruitment policy and procedure for general guidance on advertising roles.

Non-executive roles

Advise that candidates that they may undergo pre-employment screening. If a non-executive candidate is applying for a role judged to be higher risk, it is advisable to tell candidates of the importance of verifying their declaration with their previous employers.

Executive roles

For executive roles, you should make it clear that preferred candidates will:

have their misconduct declarations validated. This is irrespective of whether misconduct has been declared or not
have to provide at least one referee from their current or where relevant (i.e. because they are not employed) most recent employer in accordance with the requirements set out in executive reference checks.

Additional requirements for executive misconduct screening

The VPSC strongly recommends implementing a higher level of scrutiny in pre-employment checks when recruiting executives in the Victorian public service. This includes validation where the candidate’s declaration has been that there has been no misconduct.

Strengthened misconduct validation checks

Where a candidate has not declared any form of misconduct, employers should validate with:
- their current employer (or most recent previous employer if they are not still employed).
Where a candidate has declared some form of misconduct, employers should validate an applicant’s declaration with:
- the relevant employer and if different also their current employer (or previous employer if they are not still employed). This second check where the declaration did not relate to the most recent employer will help to determine if there have been any further matters that were not declared.

Tightened referee checks

Preferred candidates should provide at least two reference checks, including but not limited to:
- the candidate’s current direct line manager (or most recent if the candidate is not currently employed)
- where the candidate has been in any other role in the past five years, any other previous line manager.
For candidates who have not been in any other role in the past five years, the second referee should be someone who is well placed to comment on the candidate’s work performance and behaviour
If it is not possible/appropriate to complete a referee check with the candidate’s current/last direct line manager, the reference check should be conducted with the manager above the direct line manager, or the People and Culture executive of that organisation.
At organisations’ discretion, more than two reference checks may be warranted, for example where an executive has moved around a lot in recent years, or in those circumstances where the current/most recent line manager is not available or appropriate.

For further information, see executive reference checks.

Interviewing candidates

Tell each candidate you interview that you’ll screen the preferred candidate for misconduct and any other checks required.

If you plan to screen more than the preferred candidate, let everyone you interview know.

In the interview, advise candidates of their rights to informed consent.

Give them a link to this policy so they can read more.

Pre-employment checks and misconduct validations

Pre-employment screening can be done by your recruitment team, hiring manager or a trusted third-party provider.

However, misconduct screening should be done by an independent consideration panel. They’ll review and assess misconduct declarations.

The independent consideration panel can be set up by your recruitment team. It can be a person or persons with seniority, in addition to strong investigative skills.

The panel:

maintains confidentiality and reduces the risk of unlawful discrimination and bias to the candidate
reviews the declaration and validates the information by contacting the previous employers
makes a recommendation to the hiring panel on whether the candidate is suitable or not
never shares any information with the hiring panel

Validation outcomes

You may want to develop a process to record the validation outcomes and the impact these have on the employment offer.

Your process must comply with the Information Privacy Principles and best practice records management.

The benefits of this are to:

track and evaluate your own process
identify trends at a local level
better respond to validation requests you get from other organisations
support whole-of-Victorian-government analysis of the pre-screening policy

Candidate confidentiality

Throughout your process, think about how you can protect the candidate’s sensitive and private information.

If you use the phone to validate information, try to verify the identity of the caller or stop the call from being overheard by a third party.

Have a way to verify the identity of anyone who needs to release information to you. This includes the preferred candidate, current and former employers.

Always explain the process and confirm the person you’re contacting has the authority to validate the candidate’s information.

Take notes of the conversation and have the written record signed by both parties. This could be through an email confirmation of your notes.

Always remind the person you’re speaking with that their comments need to:

be honest and fair
not be about the candidate’s protected attributes
not be about any personal characteristics not related to the candidate’s ability to fulfil the inherent requirements of the role

A candidate is generally entitled to access any information you collect about them.

Responding to concerns disclosed in screening

If anything concerning comes up through screening:

determine if it will impact the candidate’s ability to perform the role
determine if there’s a conflict of interest
assess the risk
ask the candidate if they’d like to respond to the concerns
make further enquiries if needed.

Integrity impacts

If a candidate knowingly makes a false statement in recruitment, this may be against the public sector values.

This means your organisation may:

not consider them for the role
terminate their employment if you’ve already hired them

Making an offer

You can offer a candidate a role if there are no misconduct issues that would:

stop them from doing the role’s inherent requirements
create an unacceptable level of risk

For an executive role, the contract should have a clause that states:

the candidate agrees they’ve provided true and correct information in their application
providing false or misleading information is likely to be a breach of the Public Sector Values
consequences of this may include termination of their employment.

Records management

Treat all information you send or receive as personal information, in line with the Information Privacy Principles and good records management.

This includes:

secure storage and restricted access of screening forms and outcomes those who have a need to know
rules on how long you’ll store and when you’ll update outcomes

Never store any of this information in your personal files, such as OneDrive.

You must develop a secure and restricted file storage location that only the people who pre-screen candidates can use.

Read the Public Records Office of Victoria guide on what you need to do.