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

Hiring

How should we handle inquiries about age that we need to conduct background checks?

04/15/2010
Q. We require all applicants to complete a pre-employment screening form that asks for their date of birth. The firm that conducts our background checks needs that information to perform the screening. Does this practice run afoul of laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of age?

When documenting hiring processes, be sure to track rejected job offers, too

04/15/2010
Here’s a tip for avoiding lawsuits over alleged discrimination. Don’t keep statistics just on the employees you hire. Track those to whom you offered a job, but who turned it down, too.

What’s your most bizarre experience in an interview?

04/13/2010
HR Specialist Forum readers recently shared their stories of the strangest things they’ve experienced during job interviews. After collecting all the responses, we asked you to vote on your top five. Here are the “winners.”

Pros and cons of creating applicant ‘blacklist’

04/12/2010

Employers typically don’t want to hire applicants who haven’t succeeded elsewhere. So they sometimes create a blanket “no-hire” rule for applicants who aren’t eligible for rehire by their former employers. Such a policy can give you cover against possible retaliation complaints. But if you’re tempted to draft such a policy, be careful: Make sure you enforce the rule uniformly.

Deloitte recruits grads through social media

04/12/2010
New York-based accounting and consulting firm Deloitte has found an easier way for job-seekers to determine whether they’ll fit into the company’s culture before they submit applications: by placing employee testimonials in Internet social media channels.

How not to manage HR: Forget about formal hiring and promotions processes

04/07/2010
Sometimes, the best lessons are learned from the worst examples. That’s often the case with HR management. When employers make big mistakes and have to pay for them in court, other employers with good practices—that maybe need just a little tweaking—can discover what not to do.

Look beyond cliches and puffery to find resume truths

04/07/2010

As unemployment continues to hover near 10%, the temptation to stretch the truth on a résumé is becoming harder for desperate job-seekers to resist. That’s why experts say job applicants are doing more “creative writing” on their résumés these days. And hiring managers need to be more vigilant. Some tips:

The hidden HR hurdles of health care reform

04/06/2010
It’s no wonder that some provisions of the recently enacted health care reform law flew under the media radar. After all, it’s more than 2,000 pages long. But HR pros need to know about new requirements concerning reporting of employer-provided health benefits, breastfeeding at work and background checks for health care workers.

Stop frivolous claims with solid hiring, promotion processes consistently applied

04/02/2010

Smart employers have well-developed and organized hiring and promotion processes. Not only do they have them, they follow them carefully. That’s critical because when people don’t get jobs they want, they often suspect discrimination. And then they sue, whether they have a good case or not.

E-Verify: E is for error 54% of the time, study says

04/02/2010

E-Verify, the online tool employers can use to check the work-authorization status of new hires, wrongly clears illegal workers about 54% of the time, according to a study commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security. “Many unauthorized workers obtain employment by committing identity fraud that cannot be detected by E-Verify,” said the report by research firm Westat.