Do you HAVE to have an open requisition for a truly ‘open’ position?

Can you post a position on your web site which isn’t actually vacated and begin accepting internet resumes in anticipation of the future?
Lisa Ridgeway
Corporate Recruiter
Milgard Manufacturing

the recently-released results of an OFCCP-commissioned study have revealed that the predictive power of the Survey to identify contractors who are out of compliance is ‘only slightly better than chance.’ As such, the ‘OFCCP has [now] concluded that the Survey misdirects valuable enforcement resources’ and does not meet any of the objectives set forth in the 2000 rule.

See more at -
http://www.jacksonlewis.com/legalupdates/article.cfm?aid=887

May I thank all of you — Karen,Lisa and David —profusely for all the time and effort put in answering the questions raised by me?

A belated Happy,Prosperous and Healthy New Year to all of you.

Warm Regards

Additionally, it is important to note that Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (’EEOC’), as well as the Department of Labor, Department of Justice and the Office of Personnel Management have not adopted the OFCCP’s definition of an Internet applicant yet. Back on March 4, 2004 these four agencies proposed rules regarding the definition of an Internet applicant under the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures. However, these agencies have not concluded what the specific definition will be. Thus, from an EEOC perspective, the definition of a job applicant, Internet or otherwise, has not been modified.

From a pragmatic perspective, I suspect that the EEOC and other three agencies will probably adopt a definition of Internet applicant that does not materially differ from that adopted by the OFCCP. However, we will need to wait until the publication of the final regulations to confirm this to be accurate.

I trust this information is helpful.

1. The published rule applies only to federal contractors. However, if you are a private company who supplies candidates or candidate information to a federal contractor, your client should expect you to comply with the record-keeping and reporting regulations as well. Also, we are still waiting for the UGESP taskforce, including the EEOC, to publish its final definition of an Internet applicant. This would apply to all private employers with at least 15 employees.

2. The applicability of the regulations depends on where the employees are located. If you are a Canadian company or recruiter filling US positions, the regulations apply. If you are filling Canadian jobs, the regulations do not apply.

3. Enforcement is the responsibility of the OFCCP. In all likelihood, the OFCCP would audit a federal contractor’s recruiting and hiring procedures. In this situation, all sources of candidates would be under scrutiny including private or non-US recruiting firms.

I hope that this was helpful.

Unfortunately many recruiters are unaware that Employment laws apply to TPR?s more so than they do to Actual Companies. In some states some of the federal and state employment laws may not apply to a company based upon the number of employees they have in a particular radius, but this does Not hold true for recruiters.

Another thing to recognize is that State Laws are often more stringent than Federal Laws. It does not matter which country or state you may physically be in, if one is doing business nationally or internationally the state/country that has the more stringent federal laws will apply. For EG. If your candidate is in N.Y, the company is based in IL, you are in OR, and the position and interviews are in AL, then the EEOC can decide which state laws can prevail. As a recruiter outside of America, the U.S laws can automatically prevail even if the candidate is NOT American, and the Company is Not American, but shall be working for an office based in the U.S. (these laws do also protect Illegal Residents in the U.S. as well)

In regards to who brings the suits ? a perfect example will be 2 recent lawsuits settled in Buffalo N.Y in November. 2 Candidates/employees complained to the EEOC against a Staffing Company and two of their clients with Bias Based on Race, Sex, Age, Disability and National Origin – the EEOC filed the Lawsuit to the Buffalo courts on behalf of the employees. The case was settled out of court. The Staffing Firm will share the financial burden with the two clients. They will be have the larger financial burden as they were two separate incidents, with 2 separate clients.

Finally, it may be interesting to note that The EEOC has decided as of the 1st of this year to beef up their Agency Presence. In a recent conversation with them last year they noted that they utilize the internet and testers to target companies that discriminate. Yes they actually do employ individuals to search the internet. Job listings, forums, blogs and such like.

Testers are individuals that the EEOC employs to apply for job for work at random locations either in person, by paper or electronically. They will be qualified for the positions, but the differing factor will be race, age or such like. More about testers can be found at http://www.workforce.com article Should HR Managers Worry About ‘Testers’?

Hope this answers your questions.

Thanks for the above articles.
A few quick questions:

1. Does this compliance regulation apply to ALL i.e. even those recruiters working for and in the Private sector ?

2. How does this affect recruiting companies located say in Canada but doing business in the USA ( Private and Government)?

3. How is the enforcement proposed to be done if at all it is applicable to ALL?i.e. a private recruitement agency working on behalf a private sector client—can the applicant sue the agency on grounds of discrimination? Can he / she sue the company, say, in Canada?

When you are using a search engine that does its own ‘thinking’, how can anyone determine what the actual criteria were that generated any given hit(s) ?

We have been planning some modifications to our own search engine to meet this challenge starting Feb 6, 2006; how will other ATS vendors deal with this ?