When a potential employer sends you for a pre-employment drug screen, does that usually indicate that you’ve been offered a position? Ten days ago I was contacted by a large retail pharmacy chain that I had applied for a position with as a pharmacy technician, and asked to come in for an interview and “to fill out some paperwork.” Since I had previously taken an aptitude test at the site, I asked if I was being offered a position. The pharmacist said that yes, I was. I went in for the interview, everything seemed to go well, and I was given instructions on where to report for a drug screen. As the interview concluded, I asked again if this indicated that I was being offered a position, and again they answered affirmatively. After a week had elapsed and I hadn’t heard from them, I called them yesterday to ask what was up. The pharmacist replied that I was still under consideration, along with two other people. I realize that it’s still too early to draw any hasty conclusions, but does it appear that I am being jerked around for some reason? Even the guy at the drug testing clinic told me that the fact that I was there indicated that I had a job. Since drug screens obviously cost the investigating company time and money, what level of commitment does sending a potential employee for one usually indicate? I realize that any company can have whatever policy they want on the matter, but does it usually indicate that a decision has already been made? Or is it common for a company to send several potential candidates for screening?
A company will narrow down the candidates before giving a drug test. It only means you’re in the that top candidates, not that you have the job. They will pay for a few people to get the tests if they need somebody quickly encase one or more fails the test.
I have always gone for a drug screening after they had decided on me for the position. They did say, well in advance of the test, that the offer would be rescinded if failed the test, or if my credentials failed in some other way, so they could be working those tasks in parallel. It may not be prohibitively expensive to screen someone they won’t later hire, but it seems a little less likely.
The legality of a pre-offer drug test depends on state law in the U.S.
It depends is the real answer. I worked for a large hotel and they had a three part process.
- H/R
- Boss
- Boss’s Boss
If H/R passed you, you were sent for a drug test.
Then if you passed the drug test, they sent your file on to the person who would be your boss. If he liked you, you got a call back for another interview.Then a minimal interview (usually a formality) with the boss’s boss.
It was a total waste of money in my view point. We had bulk rate drug testing (via hair) for $2.29 per candidate and we still wasted over $11,000 on drug tests alone for candidates that failed or were never called back because the person to be your boss didn’t like your resume.
You never really know a company’s policy. I used to think if a company spent the money to fly you in for an interview and put you up overnight and give you dinner and pick you up at the airport in a limo you were a shoo in. Not so, at least not in my case. I’ve been on over 50 such interviews in the past three years and never got the job.
So some companies will shell out big bucks for an interview but that doesn’t mean much. After all a $1,000 may seem like a lot but it’s nothing to a multi billion dollar company
When I was hired back on at AT&T in 2006, it was contingent on passing a drug test. Knowing the company as I do, they would never spend a penny unless they had already decided to offer me a job.
You appear to be right:
I’m going to see if I can find a list of those states.
My wife applied for a job at Target years ago and was told to take a drug test. 30 days later, after she had long accepted another job offer and was well into her first month there, she got a call from Target saying she passed and asking if she could start next week. Needless to say, she turned them down.
Well, I’m not quite sure what to make of this, but assuming that the information here is true, it’s now federal law:
Like I said, I’m not going to jump to any conclusions right now. It’s possible that the pharmacist didn’t know what he was talking about. It’s the store’s general manager who makes the decision, not the pharmacy staff. She’s the one who interviewed me, and she’s the one who assured me that I was being offered a position. It’s possible that she just hasn’t worked me into the schedule yet. It’s an interesting subject though, so I’ll keep reading up in case I ever need or want to use this knowledge in the future. If she hasn’t contacted me by around next Friday, then I’ll start getting petulant. Right now I’m just a little disappointed because I turned down interview requests with two other companies who contacted me after this one did, one of which had very pleasant working conditions and a fixed M-F/9:00–5:30 schedule.
Sometimes I think everybody who works at Target is on drugs. :rolleyes:
Sometimes I think the rights of U.S. citizens are way more marginalized than you care to admit. Drug screen for a job? I don’t think so.
Personally, I’m more than happy to whip it out for ol’ Mr. Dixie Cup, but that’s neither here nor there.
I agree on that. There is no way I’d screen for any job less than spectacular. People lost a lot of privacy rights in the last few decades.
How common is this practice in the US? And, if common, why do people put up with it to such a degree that it has become so?
Thankfully, except for a very select few govermental jobs involving very high security clearances, I’ve never heard of any such practices in my neck of the woods.
During the last decade many crappy low wage jobs decided it’s a good idea. A lot of rights went down the toilet in 2001. There was a big push of your unpatriotic if you complain of lost rights and only a guilty person wouldn’t want this or that checked since you have nothing to hide.
In the US federal law requires all federal contractors to perform drug screens. I think it is actually part of every Gov’t contract so in that sense it is optional, but in fact every new employee working on a Govt contract has to be screened. Has nothing to do with security clearances. We just hired an employee with an active TS who came to us from another Gov’t contractor-and he had to have a screen.
It’s true. It seems in modern day America if you’re going to work for a large corporation, even on the bottom level, you’re going to get screened. I work for a large corporation, and am subject to random drug tests at any given time. I’m not particularly fond of this, not because I’m at risk of losing my job, but because mouth swabs taste horrendous.
How the hell does this have anything to do with 2001? GQ answer please.
How about companies would rather have reliable workers and those that can’t stay clean long enough to take one drug test for a job they want probably won’t be too reliable. No rights are being given up. We are talking about voluntary conditions for private employment. You don’t like wearing Target’s red shirt everyday? Don’t take the job. You don’t like peeing in a cup once? Don’t take the job.
It was an answer to the question that was quoted which was asked in this thread. Did I unknowingly indicate the answer was for the first asked question? I don’t think so.
As for your statements if you look back I already said I wouldn’t take a drug test for a minimum wage job, it would have to be a great job.
Yes, they’re more or less ubiquitous now at anything above the burger-flipping level. In my experience though, they usually just screen for the NIDA 5 substances. Nobody in their right mind wants to work with a junkie or a powder monkey (been there, done that), so I’m for the most part actually grateful for the minor inconvenience. Nine times out of ten they’re not gunning for the soccer mom who takes one of her dog’s Phenobarbital tablets once a month when she has a fit of insomnia (done that, too). There are ways to detect that type of substance use also, but I’ve never had to take such a test, and from what little research I’ve done on the subject these extended types of screening are not yet par for the course. I recently spent several hours trying to find out exactly how hair analysis works and what it is actually capable of, and I came to the conclusion that at this time it is only capable of detecting the NIDA 5 drugs, but I’m not 100% sure on that. So far I haven’t been able to nail it down definitively. If that’s true, then they can pluck me like a chicken for all I care. I’ve never even seen three of the NIDA 5 substances, much less ingested them, and the last time I was even in a room where somebody was using marijuana was probably over a decade ago. I can’t even really remember, it’s been that long.