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Hire Road: questions employers ask

The driver applicant sat across the desk from the company recruiter who was going over the driver’s employment application. The recruiter noticed a two-day stay at an orientation/training class with a previous carrier and asked the driver about it.

“Did you drop out?”

The driver looked at the recruiter, again thought that recruiters ask the dumbest and most irrelevant questions, and then replied.

“Well … no. I was caesarian.”

Sometimes companies ask questions that they are required to ask by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations, and sometimes they ask questions they are not required to ask. Both can affect your employment chances. Some of the more common questions I receive involve positive pre-employment drug/alcohol testing along the following scenari

A driver tests positive/refuses a pre-employment drug/alcohol test and as a result, is not hired by the employer. The driver goes down the street a few days later (sloshing with every step from all the water he has drank to wash out his system) to apply to another company.

Questions:

1. Can this potential employer find out about the existence of the past positive test — even though the driver was never employed by the testing company?

2. Can the potential employer (legally) require the driver to sign a release authorizing the potential employer to get the results of the past drug test?

3. Can the company that gave the test in the past — but didn’t employ the driver — legally release the info if asked?

Each of these questions has some nuance. Let’s take them singly.

Can the potential employer find out about the existence of the past test?

Yes. A potential employer may find out about the existence of a test by making an inquiry to a service that stores driver employment information such as USIS (DAC) or First Advantage Transportation services. The information provided will not tell whether the test was positive or negative, simply that there was a test.

So, assuming the potential employer discovers the existence of a prior test, can they deny you employment if you refuse to sign a release allowing them to obtain the results of the test?

Yes. But, they can’t blame it on the Department of Transportation. The DOT regulations require potential employers to investigate “Whether, within the previous three years, the driver … violated the alcohol and controlled substances prohibitions from all previous DOT regulated employers that employed the driver within the previous three years from the date of the employment application, in a safety- sensitive function that required alcohol and controlled substance testing.

Therefore, if a company did not employ the driver, the DOT does not require a potential employer to obtain the information. If an employer wants to check with past companies that did not employ a driver, they are doing so of their own accord. (It should be noted that the term “employer” is used in places in the regulations without there having to be an employment or even Owner/operator relationship with the driver, e.g., DOT regulated employers must keep records of pre-employment tests even if they don’t “employ” the driver.)

Can the company that gave the test in the past legally give out the test results if they didn’t employ the driver?

Yes — but only if they receive a specific, written release from the driver to release the information to the identified party.

To sum it up, companies can discover past drug tests even if you didn’t work for the company, they can condition your employment on your willingness to release the results and past employers must provide the information if commanded by you.  Don’t mess around with pre-employment testing and know what’s on your record.

Derek Hinton has more than 20 years experience in the areas of employment screening, the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Motor Carrier Safety regulations. He began his career at DAC Services in 1984 and is the author of “The Criminal Records Manual,” a book that details criminal records in the hiring process. Contact information for Hinton can be found at dotjobhistory.com.