Pre-employment Physical Examination

If you have just cleared a job interview and the employer has asked you to take a physical exam, there is nothing that you should worry about. This is just a normal procedure followed by companies to ensure that the person they are about to hire is physically and mentally fit to perform his duties in the best possible manner. Through this companies make sure that the job applicant does not pose any kind of threat to the other employees as well as clients. They are in a way trying to minimize any future risks or liabilities that may arise due to the person they are about to employ by making him take these tests. Scroll down to know about this in detail.

What to Expect During a Pre-employment Physical Exam

This exam completely depends upon the kind of job a person has applied for. For instance, if the job requires a person to work manually, certain tests may be conducted during the medical exam to check the person's physical ability as well as stamina. But mostly, for a pre-employment test, the doctors start with assessing the medical history of a person by making inquiries. This is followed by physically examining a person. Certain tests such as blood tests, stress tests, etc. are conducted to assess his physical as well as psychological health. These days, alcohol and drug testing are becoming a norm to ensure that the person to be hired is not into any kind of substance abuse.

This test is most of the time the last step in any job hiring process. So if a candidate has made it to this exam and passes it too, his employment is mostly confirmed.

Other Aspects

According to the law, an employer who has a minimum of fifteen employees in his organization can ask a job applicant to take this physical exam only if he offers him conditional employment. This law was created to ensure that no candidate was discriminated just because he was handicapped or had some sort of other disabilities. With the conditional employment law, an employer can only reject a candidate if the test shows that the person will not be able to do his job well due to his disabilities.

Another important aspect is that the companies have to keep its results entirely confidential. Under no circumstance can they reveal the results to anybody, except for the candidate or with his permission to a doctor known to him.

By looking at the results of the physical examination, an employer can make an assessment regarding an employee's possible proneness to illness and injury. Any future absenteeism on the employee's part due to his mental or physical shortcomings can be averted too. Thus, this saves a lot of cost and money for any given organization.

As can be seen, a pre-employment physical tests as well as employee background checks are a win-win situation for the employer, employee as well as the customers. The employers benefit as they are sure that they are hiring a candidate fit to do his job well. For the employees a physical exam is a guarantee against any sort of employment discrimination. For the customers it is beneficial in the sense that they are in safe hands. For instance, a firefighter is hired only after a thorough physical examination which ensures that only the mentally tough and physically fit are hired, which in a way is good for everybody in the society. Thus, it can be said that a physical examination is a must as it benefits all the involved parties!