Hiring

Family Responsibilities Discrimination Quiz

This quiz was created by The Center for WorkLife Law. It will help you identify family responsibilities discrimination (FRD) issues, and learn more about how employers can prevent FRD. Best of all, this quiz won’t be graded, so it should... (Continue reading)

Can Recruiters Be Liable for Employment Discrimination?

Introduction (a Quiz) Which of the following is true: 1. Third-party recruiters can’t be liable for discrimination in recruiting, because discrimination laws apply only to employers. 2. Third-party recruiters can’t be liable for discrimination in recruiting, because they don’t actually... (Continue reading)

A Tale of Two Reference Check Responses — Liability for One, But Not the Other

The Lawsuit Alleging Misrepresentations in Responding to Reference Checks In a 2008 federal court of appeals case, two medical employers responded to reference checks for the same anesthesiologist, Dr. Robert Berry. Dr. Berry was then hired by the inquiring hospital,... (Continue reading)

Negligent Hiring Claim: California Case Demonstrates Outer Limits to Liability

This California Negligent Hiring Decision Is Potentially Relevant To All Employers, Wherever They Are Located Avoiding negligent hiring lawsuits is an important subject to anyone concerned with risk management in connection with employment decision making. It is a major reason... (Continue reading)

Judge Gives NASA Lesson on Background Checks

NASA scientists, engineers, and administrative support personnel believed newly- implemented background checks were unlawful, claiming NASA lacked authority to implement them and was invading personal privacy. After unsuccessfully seeking injunction in federal district court, they ultimately prevailed when Ninth Circuit... (Continue reading)

Employers Using Facebook for Background Checking, Part III

Employment decisions based on information from social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook raise many interesting legal questions. Today, I’ll look at a few possible discrimination issues that suggest such sources should be used with caution. In Part II... (Continue reading)

EEOC, OFCCP debate discrimination in recruiting and hiring

A recruiter friend, Karen Mattonen, tells me that many recruiters are becoming more eager to learn about discrimination laws as they become more aware of the legal risks inherent in their activities. The stakes are increasing as candidates become more... (Continue reading)

Employers Using Facebook for Background Checking: Is It Legal?

As a partial excuse for my lack of posts the last couple of days, I’m linking to a guest post I just completed for Steve Rothberg over at CollegeRecruiter.com, entitled: “Employers Using Facebook for Background Checking: Is It Legal?” While... (Continue reading)

Suing Competitors for Using Illegals

A new trend: businesses suing competitors for hiring illegal workers to achieve an unfair advantage. In the first of a series of lawsuits, a temporary employment agency that supplies farm workers sued a grower and two competing companies on Monday.... (Continue reading)

More on Employers’ Immigration Obligations

Yesterday, I wrote about immigration. Today, I happened on a few related items. First, while looking at back issues of the St. Louis Bar Journal, for which I am preparing an article, I found: “A Brief Overview of the United... (Continue reading)

Some Immigration Law Tips for Employers

Congress seems to be stuck in the process of passing much-needed immigration law reform. But employers must still comply with existing law — an obligation that can get sticky. I ran across an article that briefly summarizes employers’ obligations —... (Continue reading)

Disparate TREATMENT vs. Disparate IMPACT

Some otherwise very knowledgeable and smart HR folks, and perhaps even lawyers, may have difficulty understanding the difference between disparate treatment and disparate impact. Indeed, in some old Supreme Court cases, the supreme court justices appeared to begin to merge... (Continue reading)

Book Review: Diversity Recruitment Advertising Toolkit

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Diversity Recruitment: A Lot More Than Just Some Words On Paper

An article from Forbes.com reports some interesting findings in terms of diversity recruitment, with regard to which companies are viewed most highly by minority students, the importance of executive involvement, and the kinds of recruitment sources preferred. What are some... (Continue reading)

To Proctor or Not to Proctor: That is the Question for Some Internet Tests

Nope, “proctoring” has nothing to do with anything medical. Rather, it relates here to whether or not a company assigns someone to watch over test-takers as they take an examination of the psychological type. In his latest posting, Jamie of... (Continue reading)

EEOC Starts Focusing On Recruitment and Hiring Discrimination

In our recent posting regarding EEOC’s new compliance manual on race and color discrimination, I didn’t mention that recruitment discrimination seems to get quite a bit of attention. This seems to indicate a renewed emphasis at EEOC. Curious to see... (Continue reading)

Latest Update on OFCCP’s Internet Applicant Definition and the Implications for Companies

Well, the deadline for compliance by covered companies for compliance with the new definition of an Internet Applicant is almost one month old now, and some companies are feverishly trying to get into compliance. At George’s Blawg, we have tried... (Continue reading)

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Employment Testing (But Didn’t Know Where to Ask)

Many people question the value of, and issues related to, employment testing in the workplace. At this blawg, we have often covered employment testing, from a variety of perspectives. We have also looked at case law regarding employment testing. I... (Continue reading)

Perverse Economic Impact of Laws Inhibiting Employment Termination: French Government “Gets It”; French Protesters Don’t

Today, some thoughts on employment policy and economics inspired by these recent developments in France: PARIS (Reuters) – Huge crowds of students, trade unionists and left-wing politicians took to the streets across France on Saturday to press the conservative government... (Continue reading)

From the Other Side of the Fence: The Impact of the OFCCP Internet Applicant Regs on Job Hunting

Have you thought about how the new OFCCP regs on internet applicants will affect job hunters? This article has a number of hints for job hunters!... (Continue reading)

Forced to Hire Someone For Reasons Other Than Job Qualifications: Recent Poll Indicates This Is A Common Issue

Recently surveyed HR managers indicated that they are frequently required to hire someone for reasons other than job qualifications. In this posting, I discuss what those factors are.... (Continue reading)

Latest Discrimination Class Action Target: Best Buy (will Target be next target?)

Best Buy has become the latest “big box” retailer to fall victim to the race discrimination and sex discrimination class action craze, joining the likes of Wal-Mart and Walgreens. Six former and current employees sued Best Buy Thursday, “alleging the... (Continue reading)

Read All About It: New Internet Applicant Definition Causing Corporate Uproar

Still hot off the presses, this posting describes some of the commotion created by the new OFCCP definition of internet applicant. We won't really know the full impact for a while, after OFCCP starts reviewing companies with this definition in... (Continue reading)

Where Do College Educated, Ethnically Diverse Job Seekers Look for Jobs?

Report of recruitment sources heavily used and not so heavily used by college educated, ethnically diverse job seekers.... (Continue reading)

HR/Employment Blogosphere Update for October 1-26, 2005

I’ve been so busy switching to the new format and keeping up with the “Our Recent Reading” page that I’ve neglected to do this update for over a month. (New readers: I had been doing it weekly, publishing on Monday,... (Continue reading)