• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Hiring

The innocent question that could land you in court: When did you graduate?

05/16/2012

Do you ask applicants when they graduated from high school or college or otherwise finished their education? That seemingly innocuous question could trigger an age discrimination lawsuit if an applicant’s graduation year makes it clear he’s 40 or older and you wound up hiring someone younger.

Recruiting edge: Video games firm ignores resumes

05/14/2012

Recruiters for video games company IGN Entertainment don’t care if would-be employees went to college or have experience with another firm. They’re looking for raw talent. The media company has kicked off a “no résumés allowed” recruitment program—the Code-Foo Challenge.

New guidance: Are you ready for an I-9 audit

05/12/2012
Are your I-9s in order? More and more employers are finding themselves under scrutiny from inspectors from the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Employers now have a new tool to help them stay on the right side of the law.

Contractor for short-term job: Good idea?

05/10/2012

Q. We want to bring on a worker to help finish up a contract that we have with a customer. The contract and work will end in a few months. To ease in setting this up and to avoid any long-term commitment, I’d like to hire the individual as a contractor and not an employee. Can I do this?

FedEx pays $3 million to settle hiring bias charges

05/10/2012
FedEx Ground has agreed to pay $3 million to resolve allegations by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) that the company’s hiring practices were discriminatory.

DOL targets South Florida migrant labor practices

05/09/2012
The U.S. Department of Labor has filed two lawsuits against contractors providing workers to South Florida farms, following investigations into migrant laborers’ working conditions.

It’s not bias: Set cutoff date for receiving applications

05/09/2012
Protect your company by tracking when you received each completed job application. You can easily justify a cut-off point, based on the order in which you received complete applications.

EEOC: We’re watching how you run criminal checks

05/09/2012
New, official EEOC guidance reinforces the commission’s view that using criminal histories to screen out job applicants can violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by having a disparate impact on minorities.

Second state bans bias against the unemployed

05/08/2012
Oregon last month followed New Jersey’s lead in establishing a law that makes it illegal for employers to refuse to hire applicants because they’re unemployed.

Schumer jumps into Facebook password fray

05/03/2012
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have asked the DOJ and the EEOC to issue an opinion on one of today’s hot-button employment law issues: Is it a violation of the Stored Communications Act or any other federal law for an employer to ask job applicants to provide their Facebook passwords?