4 ms·

> Not only does fear of lawsuits prevent companies from disclosing no-hire reasons, it prevents them from even recording those reasons internally. I don't get

> Not only does fear of lawsuits prevent companies from disclosing no-hire reasons, it prevents them from even recording those reasons internally. I don't get this mentality. A) I seem to be unaware of the rash of lawsuits befalling companies that provide feedback. I admit I just may be ignorant of them. B) It seems that not recording reasons actually makes the company more vulnerable. When you combine a "preponderance of evidence" legal standard with "Lies, damn lies, and statistics" it seems like it would be easy for a litigious candidate and a good lawyer to force a settlement or get a favorable jury ruling if the company cannot present hard evidence that said candidate was not hired because of X, Y, and Z non-protected reasons. In fact, that is the reason given in discussions about why it is so hard to fire people for going though the PIP process instead of just cutting them loose.

readams 11y ago
The lawsuits are discrimination lawsuits. Candidates will allege racial, gender, or age discrimination. If you given them any sort of justification, plaintiff's council will go searching through your organization for anyone who works there already and fails to pass whatever justification you provided. Then, jurors are free to infer that the real reason why intentional bias and the justification was just a cover story. This is not theoretical. This is the playbook.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- dclowd9901 11y ago
  Exactly this. An attorney will practically start salivating if a despondent candidate comes to them with a story of not getting hired and the company telling them they weren't a good "culture fit."
mhurron 11y ago
Absence of evidence is not evidence. Not having hiring records on anyone is not proof that a company is discriminating. > that is the reason given in discussions about why it is so hard to fire people for going though the PIP process instead of just cutting them loose That is a different case though. In the event of a firing, you have their work performance leading up to that event to take into account. If you have a black woman who has worked at a place for many years with favorable job reviews who is then suddenly let go after a new white manager is hired, they can present their work history at that company as an argument that they were let go for less than legitimate reasons.
- gomox 11y ago
  In case of discrimination alegations (race, disability and veteran-related matters in the US), the burden is on the accused to provide proof of non-discrimination. In this case, the usual practice for proving innocence is to show that the statistical distribution of hires is similar to the statistical distribution of applicants. For example, if I had 50% latino applicants, 50% of my hires should be latinos. That being said, the sort of publicity these issues get mean that companies try really hard to steer clear of any discrimination accusations. It's a delicate problem to handle.
  - yuhong 11y ago
    I dislike employment anti-discrimination laws for this and other reasons. I suggest a compromise of limiting it to manual labor jobs and the like for which the anti-discrimination laws were actually designed for.
    - HarryHirsch 11y ago
      At a well-known Java school in the Southern US the student body is ~ 2/3 Indian and 1/3 Chinese, the secretarial staff is 1/2 white, 1/2 Latino, and the tech support staff is 100 % white. It's an odd distribution, no matter how much you dislike anti-discrimination laws.
      - yuhong 11y ago
        Yes, the question is whether anti-discrimination laws would actually be an effective tool.
        HarryHirsch 11y ago
        In places as rotten as that one you'd ideally fire everyone and rehire from 4 states away. Antidiscrimination laws are weak tea, but the only tool we have. You sit and hope that the University President takes note after the first suit and fires management.
    - deleted 11y ago
gomox 11y ago
Most large companies stay out of a 10-foot-pole range of anything that legal labels with the L word (liability). The fact that not giving reasons because of liability is commonly accepted wisdom in recruiting means that deviating from it takes a lot of work. Specifically, a talent acquisition manager/executive would have to make a business case about how exposing the company to liability from outsiders would somehow pay for itself. The only plausible argument that I can think of is that you could market your recruiting process as transparent and then get some additional candidates based on that. But.. can you really postulate that some candidate that is reading about your recruiting process in depth would be highly enticed by this to actually apply, as opposed to verbiage about other perks? Can you guarantee that having a free "recruiter feedback on your application" service available to anyone out there won't create a great incentive for random candidates to apply just for that? What if there is a data leak and all this prejudicial, personally identifiable information ends up on the web? That's just what came to mind in 5 seconds. If the argument for creafting, storing and providing the rejection information sounds like a stretch, it's because it's a tough sell. About the actual legal requirement, OFCCP compliant companies have to record disposition reasons for candidates that they don't hire when some conditions are met (candidates have expressed interest in a position and they were evaluated based on "substantial information"). In my experience, these disposition reasons try deliberately to be vague. Regular companies don't, and most likely won't because of the liability issues mentioned above. For reference, here's the go-to FAQ on OFCCP requirements: http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/faqs/offaqs.htm http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/faqs/offaqs.htm
jakejake 11y ago
I really don't know of any specific cases either, but it does seem to be a fear that is perpetuated regardless. Regardless it's just seems like there's so many opportunities to create legal trouble by giving a reason, and almost no reason against saying nothing.

readams 11y ago

The lawsuits are discrimination lawsuits. Candidates will allege racial, gender, or age discrimination. If you given them any sort of justification, plaintiff's council will go searching through your organization for anyone who works there already and fails to pass whatever justification you provided. Then, jurors are free to infer that the real reason why intentional bias and the justification was just a cover story. This is not theoretical. This is the playbook.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
dclowd9901 11y ago
Exactly this. An attorney will practically start salivating if a despondent candidate comes to them with a story of not getting hired and the company telling them they weren't a good "culture fit."

mhurron 11y ago

Absence of evidence is not evidence. Not having hiring records on anyone is not proof that a company is discriminating. > that is the reason given in discussions about why it is so hard to fire people for going though the PIP process instead of just cutting them loose That is a different case though. In the event of a firing, you have their work performance leading up to that event to take into account. If you have a black woman who has worked at a place for many years with favorable job reviews who is then suddenly let go after a new white manager is hired, they can present their work history at that company as an argument that they were let go for less than legitimate reasons.

gomox 11y ago
In case of discrimination alegations (race, disability and veteran-related matters in the US), the burden is on the accused to provide proof of non-discrimination. In this case, the usual practice for proving innocence is to show that the statistical distribution of hires is similar to the statistical distribution of applicants. For example, if I had 50% latino applicants, 50% of my hires should be latinos. That being said, the sort of publicity these issues get mean that companies try really hard to steer clear of any discrimination accusations. It's a delicate problem to handle.
- yuhong 11y ago
  I dislike employment anti-discrimination laws for this and other reasons. I suggest a compromise of limiting it to manual labor jobs and the like for which the anti-discrimination laws were actually designed for.
  - HarryHirsch 11y ago
    At a well-known Java school in the Southern US the student body is ~ 2/3 Indian and 1/3 Chinese, the secretarial staff is 1/2 white, 1/2 Latino, and the tech support staff is 100 % white. It's an odd distribution, no matter how much you dislike anti-discrimination laws.
    - yuhong 11y ago
      Yes, the question is whether anti-discrimination laws would actually be an effective tool.
      - HarryHirsch 11y ago
        In places as rotten as that one you'd ideally fire everyone and rehire from 4 states away. Antidiscrimination laws are weak tea, but the only tool we have. You sit and hope that the University President takes note after the first suit and fires management.
  - deleted 11y ago

gomox 11y ago

Most large companies stay out of a 10-foot-pole range of anything that legal labels with the L word (liability). The fact that not giving reasons because of liability is commonly accepted wisdom in recruiting means that deviating from it takes a lot of work. Specifically, a talent acquisition manager/executive would have to make a business case about how exposing the company to liability from outsiders would somehow pay for itself. The only plausible argument that I can think of is that you could market your recruiting process as transparent and then get some additional candidates based on that. But.. can you really postulate that some candidate that is reading about your recruiting process in depth would be highly enticed by this to actually apply, as opposed to verbiage about other perks? Can you guarantee that having a free "recruiter feedback on your application" service available to anyone out there won't create a great incentive for random candidates to apply just for that? What if there is a data leak and all this prejudicial, personally identifiable information ends up on the web? That's just what came to mind in 5 seconds. If the argument for creafting, storing and providing the rejection information sounds like a stretch, it's because it's a tough sell. About the actual legal requirement, OFCCP compliant companies have to record disposition reasons for candidates that they don't hire when some conditions are met (candidates have expressed interest in a position and they were evaluated based on "substantial information"). In my experience, these disposition reasons try deliberately to be vague. Regular companies don't, and most likely won't because of the liability issues mentioned above. For reference, here's the go-to FAQ on OFCCP requirements: http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/faqs/offaqs.htm http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/faqs/offaqs.htm

jakejake 11y ago

I really don't know of any specific cases either, but it does seem to be a fear that is perpetuated regardless. Regardless it's just seems like there's so many opportunities to create legal trouble by giving a reason, and almost no reason against saying nothing.