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

Hiring

No such thing as ‘overqualified’: Don’t automatically reject skilled older applicant

05/29/2015
Older workers tend to have more overall experience and may seem overqualified for entry-level positions. Don’t reject those candidates, though. Doing so may set you up for a discrimination lawsuit.

Future threat: 3rd-party pressure to curb bias

05/28/2015

The American Civil Liberties Union has asked federal and California state regulators to investigate Hollywood’s hiring practices with an eye toward addressing discrimination against women. Could pressure from politically active groups be employment law’s wave of the future?

We found questionable I-9 documents: What now?

05/28/2015
Q: “While conducting an annual self-audit of employee files and I-9 compliance, I have encountered some questionable documents that I believe to be fraudulent. If I contact an ICE agent to verify these documents, will this then trigger a company wide ICE audit?” – Santana, Texas

Succession: Keep an eye out for age diversity

05/28/2015
Generational turnover is an opportunity for positive change. Too many employers miss that chance by choosing candidates who provide easy continuity instead of those who will carry the company into the future.

Summer hiring is up–and so are summer paychecks

05/28/2015
Summer jobs are returning at a faster pace this year and, in many cases, are paying well beyond the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

Keep bias from creeping into hiring process

05/27/2015
It’s hard to discriminate against applicants based on characteristics like age and race if you don’t know they belong to a particular protected class. That’s why it’s important to have a “blind” hiring process.

Beware the hidden risks of hiring based on ‘chemistry’

05/25/2015
We’ve all thought it: “I just have a good feeling about this applicant.” Relying on subjective factors such as interview skills and personality is not the best way to pinpoint successful job candidates. Yet a Society for Human Resource Management poll found that most HR professionals say their final hiring decisions are at least 50% based on “chemistry” with the applicant.

Is it OK to simply refuse to hire sex offenders?

05/20/2015
Q. After narrowing our search to one candidate, we learned that the applicant may be listed as a registered sex offender. We would just rather not hire this applicant. Can we legally do that?

Skilled trades again among the hardest jobs to fill

05/20/2015
Almost a third of U.S. employers—32%—report that they are having a hard time filling job vacancies because they can’t find skilled candidates.

Employee failing test? OK to end it early

05/18/2015

Generally, employees taking an exam required for promotion should be tested under similar circumstances, take the same test and generally be treated the same. But sometimes, especially during a hands-on test, it becomes obvious early on that the employee does not have the skill to pass. If that’s the case, you can end the test early.