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Streamlining Pre-Employment Steps
Important pre-employment steps in the transit operator hiring process can include safety-related screenings like drug and alcohol testing, medical examinations, criminal background checks, and motor vehicle record (MVR) reviews, as well as verification of prior employment. Sixty-one percent of respondents to our survey named at least one of these steps as a major bottleneck in their transit agency’s hiring process. This checklist provides best practices for streamlining these pre-employment steps, based on our research with transit agencies of all sizes across the U.S.
- Enable candidates to complete steps concurrently wherever possible. For example, a candidate could undergo the drug test and the medical examination at the same appointment or complete the drug test on-site right after an in-person interview if a conditional offer is made. Similarly, background check release forms or other paperwork can be completed right after an interview during the same visit. Of the transit agencies surveyed, more than 60% said that at least some of their hiring process steps occur concurrently.
- Consider limiting the background check, both in terms of time frame and type of offense, to what is legally required and what the transit agency feels is essential and job-related. State on applicant paperwork what types of offenses will be considered, as sometimes applicants will drop out of the process because they believe a prior offense will be problematic that actually would not have been a disqualifier.
- Help applicants schedule appointments for drug tests, medical examinations, etc. or arrange for a walk-in partnership somewhere your applicants will be seen promptly.
- For steps that the applicant must complete on their own (for example, in some locations scheduling the drug test or completing certain paperwork is done independently), ask applicants to conduct these steps promptly and give a specific requested timeframe (e.g., within four days). Explain clearly that the sooner they complete such steps, the sooner they can start paid training.
Every Agency is Unique
Our research uncovered substantial variation in transit agencies’ pre-employment processes, and there is no one-size-fits-all model for pre-employment checks. For example:
- Some agencies contact several of the applicant’s prior employers to verify the candidate’s work history, while others only contact prior employers where the applicant held a CDL to confirm drug test history.
- Some agencies use technologies available to them in-house for background checks while others outsource these functions to vendors.
- Some agencies honor candidates’ existing valid DOT medical cards. Others have worked with local medical providers to design a fit-for-duty test that covers all the necessary functions the agency’s operators perform; all operator candidates undergo this test.
- Manual review of gray-area criminal background issues can be a best practice, but an efficient system for these checks (i.e., one that ensures new reports are reviewed at least every week rather than compiling a month’s worth and processing them all at once) is essential to keeping the process moving. Prioritize conducting checks as soon as the information is available rather than waiting weeks to collect and process all candidates’ results at once. Talk through the results with candidates as needed to understand the context in which incidents occurred.
This page is part of TWC’s Streamlining Operator Hiring Practices research initiative aimed at documenting current transit agency hiring processes for operators and producing new resources to support agencies’ operator hiring efforts. Through background research, an industry survey, and interviews with 15 transit locations, the TWC research team has produced a series of fact sheets, briefs, and other resources focused on various aspects of the hiring process. Check out the initiative landing page to learn more about the project and to see the other resources.
