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Hiring

Can I hire a home-Schooled teenager who doesn’t have a work permit?

06/06/2008
Q. I am a small business owner. A 17-year-old who is not emancipated and has not graduated from high school recently approached me seeking full-time employment. She claims that, because she is home-schooled, she can work full-time year-round and does not have access to a work permit from her school. Can I legally hire this minor without the school certificate required by Ohio law? …

Interview questions: What not to ask

06/06/2008
Q. Are there specific questions that an employer is prohibited from asking during a job interview? …

Is it legal to deny me an interview just because I don’t meet the posted requirements?

06/06/2008
Q. I applied for a new position within my company—a promotion—for which my on-the-job experience clearly makes me the best candidate. However, the job posting states that the job requires a college degree and my employer will not even interview me for the job because he says I do not meet the minimum job requirements. Is this legal? …

Attract new college grads with signing bonuses

06/06/2008
If you’re planning to offer jobs to new college graduates this summer, you’ll be competing with a growing number of organizations that pay signing bonuses. Nearly 54% of the employers responding to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ Job Outlook 2008 survey said they will use signing bonuses to sweeten the deal for potential hires …

Ready, set, E-Verify!

06/05/2008
Login Email Address Password I forgot my password To continue reading this page, become an HR Specialist Premium Plus member today! Your subscription includes: Ask the Attorney: Answers to your HR legal questions Compliance Guidance: Access to 7,000 HR news articles, updated daily, sorted by state State-by-State: Summaries of HR laws in all 50 states […]

Same manager who hired should do the firing

06/04/2008
Discrimination cases are all about motives. That’s especially true when an employee loses his job and alleges that the real reason for his discharge was racism or some other form of bias. One simple way to deflect discrimination charges is to make sure that the same person who made the termination decision also had a direct hand in either the original hiring decision or subsequent promotions …

Whether paper or electronic, make sure job applications are legal

06/04/2008
The days of the paper job application may be fading away, but whatever takes the place of paper applications better measure up the same way. Specifically, employers have to understand that online applications can hold more legal land mines than hard copy applications ever did …

Job background check must comply with Fair Credit Reporting Act

06/04/2008

The Fair Credit Reporting Act regulates how your company performs a job background check on applicants. Contrary to popular belief, this federal law doesn’t just cover credit checks. It covers any background report, such as driving records and criminal histories obtained from a “consumer reporting agency.”

Requiring fees from applicants

06/03/2008
Q. We have a problem with applicants who pass the pre-hiring process but then decide for some reason that they don’t want the job after all. By the time we learn this, we have already spent time and money on drug tests and orientation, and turned down other applicants. Can we require applicants to submit fees to apply, which we will refund if we don’t hire them, or if they remain employed for a minimum period of time? …

Jabs, threats fly over representative’s ‘Peasant’ remarks

06/03/2008
Colorado farmers are no closer to a solution to their labor shortage after a debate on the House floor over a bill that would help bring in Mexican migrant workers through temporary visas. Whatever headway was being made on the issue stopped short when Rep. Douglas Bruce opined, “I don’t think we need 5,000 more illiterate peasants in Colorado” …