Like so much else these days, the Internet and other technology-based tools are revolutionizing the way employees are recruited and hired. Employers and job seekers alike are embracing electronic recruiting, hoping to find new and improved methods to match jobs with job seekers. Use of these new recruiting devices however, is governed by old employee selection rules. While legislators and regulators need to play catch-up, employers, recruiters, job seekers and the purveyors of electronic recruiting systems, are often faced with the uncertainty of how to proceed in this new frontier. To protect themselves, each group must ascertain how to apply the recruiting rules of the past to the electronic employment selection methods of the present and the future.
New Recruiting Tools
The manner and means of electronic recruiting are numerous and varied, and changing rapidly. Many of these services and products are offered by companies that have no stake in the final outcome of the recruiting and hiring process, but how these offerings are used can have an impact on the rights and responsibilities of the end user. Devices such as resume reading software, online job boards, hyperlinks to company web sites, online testing, fully integrated recruitment application service providers or ASP's, are enabling companies to identify job seekers in ways unknown just a short time ago. Numerous on-line companies offer services ranging from job posting boards, resume retrieval sites, candidate pre-screening, interviewing, testing and background checks. There are also software programs or service based systems offering to track and manage job seekers and applicants and store and review resumes.
Some Internet sites allow employers to search a database for prospects rather than wait for resumes or applications. Other sites enable job seekers to log-on and view available jobs listings. Still other recruiting sites allow job seekers or their recruiters to submit their job skills to a database, allow various employers to complete job qualification profiles, and then try to match job seekers with specific companies or jobs. Other web sites may appear to be those of a company, but are actually those of ASPs performing selected elements of the recruiting process for a client company.
The abundance of options for employers and job seekers to connect electronically is paces ahead of the conventional methods in which job seekers would express interest in employment to a specific employer, commonly via the mail. The reality is that electronic recruiting can be an attractive option for the right employer or job seeker. If used properly, such tools can assist employers in reducing the amount of time it takes to hire, identifying more qualified candidates, lowering recruiting expenses, and allowing the employee selection players (job seekers, employers, recruiters and providers of electronic recruiting services) to become more interactive.
With the increased availability of web-based recruiting tools, the traditional obligations imposed upon employers remain, but applying the old rules to this technology raises a host of issues. How to comply with these steadfast obligations may not be easily addressed by traditional hiring practices. Therefore, the employee selection players all need to be mindful of the many laws governing the pre-employment process, including advertising, interviewing, testing, record-keeping and the interplay between these laws and the use of electronic recruiting tools. They should also be mindful of potential exposure to liability for not complying with fair employment obligations, affirmative action requirements, record-keeping requirements and obligations to provide reasonable accommodations, all of which are discussed herein.
For the full text article, contact Steve Berlin at 609-987-6807 or berlinsm@bipc.com.
Steven M. Berlin is a shareholder and Beth Lincow Cole is an associate with the Princeton office of Buchanan Ingersoll.