Auditing Your Applicant Screening Process

Federal contractors should audit their applicant screening process to ensure that it is in compliance with relevant laws and regulations. Non-compliance with these laws and regulations can result in significant legal and financial consequences for employers. An applicant screening process audit can help to identify any potential areas of non-compliance and allow employers to make any necessary changes to their practices to ensure compliance. Additionally, an audit can help to identify any potential issues or biases in the applicant screening process and provide employers with an opportunity to make improvements to ensure that all qualified applicants have an equal opportunity to be considered for open positions. As a federal contractor, it is important to ensure that your applicant screening process is compliant with all relevant laws and regulations.

To audit your applicant screening process, you may want to consider the following steps:

1. Review your job postings: Make sure that your job postings do not contain any discriminatory language or requirements that could exclude protected classes of applicants.
2. Evaluate your application and resume review process: Ensure that your application and resume review process is fair, objective, and consistent, and that it does not discriminate against any protected classes of applicants.
3. Conduct background checks: If you conduct background checks on applicants, make sure that you do so in a way that is consistent with all relevant laws and regulations, such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
4. Consider the applicant’s qualifications: During the interview process, focus on the applicant’s qualifications, skills, and experience, rather than on personal characteristics that are not job-related.
5. Keep records: Keep detailed records of your applicant screening process, including all application materials, resumes, and notes from interviews, to demonstrate compliance with relevant laws and regulations.

Overall, auditing the applicant screening process is an important step for federal contractors to take to ensure compliance and prevent potential legal and financial risks.

If you are not completely comfortable with your process of auditing and screening your applicant process, consider affirmative action plan outsourcing. Kairos Services staff has extensive experience in both the public and private sectors. Several are former compliance specialists and managers with the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), the Federal regulatory agency responsible for affirmative action compliance by Federal contractors. Each AAP is prepared from the perspective of an OFCCP Compliance Specialist auditing the AAP. Therefore, we give attention to every detail in developing AAPs because we expect them to stand up to the rigorous scrutiny of an OFCCP audit.