1) Identifying needed job skills—typically in a legally drafted ADA compliant job description;
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Slam Dunk Hiring
1) Identifying needed job skills—typically in a legally drafted ADA compliant job description;
2) Preparing interview questions
based on that job description;
3) Avoiding legal landmines when developing those
questions and being most careful when you go off script into casual mode;
4) Knowing
how to actually conduct the interview from rapport building, open ended to
probing questions, and how to allow for silence;
5) Having an evaluation and selection
system that weighs technical skills, performance skills and certifications, and
also scores each interviewed candidate;
6) Training on how to deal with difficult
interviewing situations by looking for possible warning signs; and finally,
7) Conducting
your background checks, drug screens, and industrial physiological testing
knowing that more than a gut feeling is needed to make a good hiring decision.
These are the top 5:
1) Where are you from? Sounds like a
great rapport building question but could be interpreted as a probe about race,
ethnicity or national origin, all of which are protected categories under Title
VII.
2) What year did you graduate from high school? This question could run
afoul of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and seen as another way to
ask how old they are.
3) Are you planning to have a family? That question could
suggest women with families are disfavored; it could implicate laws designed to
protect the LGBT community from bias or show you favor singles.
4) Do you have
any disabilities you want to let us know about? Under the Americans with
Disabilities Act, employers are barred from asking about a disability even if
it is related to job performance, unless done most artfully.
5) How do you
spend your free time? This is obviously a question that is not job-related and
it can elicit information about someone’s religion, political affiliations,
social clubs, etc. A better question
than any of the above is: “I would like
to know more about you and how it relates to your ability to perform the job.”
Then if the candidate brings up an out of bounds topic don’t take the bait.
Tommy Eden is a partner working out of the Constangy,
Brooks, Smith & Prophete, LLP offices in Opelika, AL and West Point, GA and
a member of the ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law and serves on the Board
of Directors for the East Alabama SHRM Chapter. He can be contacted at
teden@constangy.com or 334-246-2901. Blog at www.alabamaatwork.com