<p>I'm interviewing Friday for a internship with a company and they sent me an employment application to fill out. There is several pages and one includes an authorization to take specimen for drug testing and release.</p>
<p>My question is, will they do this on my interview? Or will it be done at a later date if I'm offered the job? Most likely urine or hair?</p>
<p>I'm meeting with an HR rep the first 30 minutes of my interview.</p>
<p>Typically drug testing is done after the decision to make an offer has been made (it’d be pretty expensive to drug test every single applicant). If you’ve been doing drugs, my suggestion to you is to not do that anymore…</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of them taking a sample at an interview, but I suppose it’s conceivable. Could be hair or urine (depends on the company), and will most likely be a month or so before starting work.</p>
<p>What scares me is they say: </p>
<p>“I understand that XXXX has a policy requiring each applicant for employment to be
tested for the presence of drugs.”</p>
<p>Then they say…</p>
<p>"In the event an offer of employment is extended to me or I accept an offer of employment prior to taking the test, I fully understand that the offer will be revoked or my employment terminated if the tests are positive.</p>
<p>It seems like those statements contradict each other. If they test all applicants, why do some accept employment prior to taking the test?</p>
<p>Why does it matter? If you’re applying for jobs, you clearly shouldn’t be doing any drugs. If you have been, you’ve made a major mistake, and you may have to pay the price for that. This is pretty straight forward.</p>
<p>If they have the resources to drug test on the premises, it is possible they do test every applicant. If they utilize another resource, like a local medical facility, this would be pricey and they would likely only do this for applicants who receive a job offer. Either way, when searching for jobs, you should keep yourself clean. If you are on any prescriptions or supplemental herbs that may show up in the screening, be sure to explain this and even have proof of prescription with you before the test is done.</p>
<p>I was drug tested for a position at my on site interview, prior to receiving an offer (I had a phone interview prior to them flying me out to their facility). I know of other companies who do on site testing on the first day of work. They could have someone from HR using cheap urine test strips or they could have a company come and take a urine or hair sample.
It really depends on the company and how they operate.</p>