Carly Baratt and Nancy Gunzenhauser Popper, attorneys in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s New York office, co-authored an article in Law360 Employment Authority, titled “Job App Compliance As State Fair Hiring Laws Proliferate.” (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt (see below to download the full version in PDF format):
The employment application is a long-standing tool utilized by most employers to collect a consistent set of wide-ranging data from prospective employees in order to effectively and efficiently compare applicants' credentials and identify which candidates to move forward in the hiring process.
To that end, many employment applications seek information about a candidate's education, prior employment and skills, and may encourage employees to self-identify their race/ethnicity and sex.
However, to promote fair hiring practices, a number of states and localities have passed legislation specifically prohibiting employers from soliciting certain information from candidates at the prehire stage, including on an employment application.
This article highlights recent laws that require employers to review and potentially update their employment applications by eliminating certain questions around age, criminal history records, prior salary, salary expectations, Social Security numbers and the like, depending on the jurisdictions in which they do business.