23% of interviews have a drug test. What's the incentive behind that?
It's interesting, because I've worked with a lot of people in a lot of places over the years and I've never seen drugs as a problem that impedes workplace attendance / performance. Alcohol / hangovers, sure - plenty of times - but they're not testing for that, right?
EDIT: parentheses content.
As i've moved up in job quality it has gone from "we will test you aggressively to see if you do drugs" to "why would we care about this?"
Practically it is very stupid because the heroin/meth/cocaine type drugs become undetectable within days while pot takes weeks.
It's a dumb US thing, basically.
That must be a new -- post 2007 -- thing, then.
I'm sure there are some ultraconservative companies that drug test everyone — including developers and senior managers — but those are few and far between in comparison.
Incidentally, it's quite awkward if you're currently employed when you get the new offer - as I was. The lab that collected the urine sample opened early in the morning for "regular" work but only accepted drug test samples from 10 AM to 3 PM on weekdays.
Outside of the red tape domains, like banking and government, I've never been drug tested as a developer. The idea that a low skill worker is more likely to be on drugs is classism. Low skill workers really get no autonomy. They are drug tested, have to clock in and out, and even have monitored lunch/bathroom breaks. It's kind of disgusting to think about.
As far as I know companies use piss tests, which don't detect most hard drugs after a few days. They detect pot for weeks. Hair tests will detect anything forever. They are more expensive but if companies actually cared about not hiring people who do hard drugs they would have to do them.
The only purpose I can see for it is that it is a legal leash they can tie to the employee to exert control on their lives. There's lots of other things companies would like to be able to fire you for, but they're either illegal or impossible to detect. Drug testing is one they're allowed to do.
I can understand drug testing people if they cause an accident, are intoxicated at work, etc. but to do it as a matter of course for employment is just to show you who's boss.
a) stop/pass the test
b) find somewhere that doesn't care
My company puts a common clause in the offer letter that says "this offer is contingent upon your successful completion of a drug screening, confirmation of your references, and the verification of your education and work history".
For example - if you work for a company that provides contract services to healthcare / hospital / gov / dod companies or agencies - you will likely be required to take a drug screen. and this is done prior to your offer being officially accepted on their end.
I used to work for a company that would regularly send employees into refineries and chemical plants that we were consulting for. They required anyone who would go on-site to submit to drug tests, even though they weren't directly employed by the plant operator. So thanks to their requirement, most of our company had to be drug tested routinely.
I do wonder if any of these insurance companies have ever actually proven that drug tests make the plant safer. I suppose it makes more sense when you consider that it's an environment where a routine screw-up could easily cause catastrophic destruction. But do they know for sure, or are they just assuming or protecting themselves from lawsuits or something?
People who, for example, smoke marijuana, will fail a drug test. Will they miss work because they're hungover from a Big Weekend? No, mostly not. Will some straight arrow call in sick because he or she got sick on Sunday evening? Yes. We know this. But to avoid having to cope with ambiguity or grey areas or hard decisions, we just let a "drug" test do it all.
It is also noteworthy, that drug-tests are not as precise as people might think. Most of them look for traces of metabolic byproducts of a substance, not the substance itself.
There are some (legal) medications, wich can indicate optium- and methamphetamine-addiction.
Does it make sense? Often it makes none at all.
Screening for recreational drug markers doesn't mean I'm judging their morals, but I'm zeroing out my risk factors.
What I've seen is that most companies don't care about those. They only care about illegal drugs. Even legal prescriptions that could have nasty effects are not judged harshly.
In short, there are more defensible reasons to drug test than what I listed, but they don't show up often in practice.