At least we can buy a Big Gulp®
This isn't political (you will see why I say this in a moment). This may, however, be a call to get politically active - or at least to stay aware - on a key issue in human resources and specifically, the field of talent acquisition. This is about business making sure that in hiring, you get the best person for the job. How do we go about this? In the interview process, we look for past behaviors that we can correlate with the open position's responsibilities. We follow a simple rule:
- Past performance (or behavior) in the same or similar work is the single most reliable predictor of future performance (or behavior) in a given job.
New York City Outlaws Discrimination Against Unemployed Job Hunters
We can all agree, we should not discriminate. In hiring, we want to find and hire the best possible person for any open role. There is no room for discrimination in this equation. While not a protected class (yet?), we can make an argument for not discriminating against candidates based on their employment status. If the goal is to find the best person for a given role, discrimination for any reason is an obstacle for making this a reality. The subtitle above is directly from an article in the August 2013 edition of HR Magazine (a SHRM publication). On the surface, this topic and law should not be an issue. Reading the article by Jeffrey Lax, we should, however, be concerned. He writes that under this law, there are many questions that are commonly asked in any basic screening interview that may now pose serious legal problems - and allow candidates (who then become plaintiffs) to pursue private civil claims. Examples include:- Directly inquiring about the candidate's current employment status.
- Inquiring about employment gaps on the candidate's resume.
- Asking the candidate in job transition about circumstances surrounding their leaving a previous position.