What is an Internet Job Applicant?
As you may have heard by now, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has, at long last, published its draft guidelines for what constitutes a job applicant on the Internet. This definition is important, of course, because it determines on whom companies must keep records in order to prove their compliance with Federal anti-discrimination laws.
In essence, the guidelines state that a person must be considered an applicant if all of three conditions are met:
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The employer has taken steps to fill a particular position; in other words, it has posted the job online or otherwise announced the opening on its own corporate career site or on a job board.
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The individual has expressed an interest in that particular position; that interest may be signaled by submitting a resume or otherwise communicating their desire to be considered for the job.
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And, the individual has followed the employer's standard application procedure.
Given the tsunami of resumes that cascade into recruiter e-mailboxes these days, this definition would seem to establish a bookkeeping requirement of monumental proportions. There is potential relief, however, if you take full advantage of the last provision of the guidelines. That stipulation-requiring the individual to follow the employer's standard application procedures-enables an employer to meet both the letter and the spirit of the new regulation and simultaneously avoid an onerously large reporting requirement.
The key is in the phrase "standard application procedure." To be standard, it must not only be applied to all applicants, but it must be known to them, as well. Most employers assume that job seekers know the steps in their process or, at least, can figure them out by following the directions they are given on a site. That passive approach to communicating "the standard," however, is subject to individual interpretation. In reality, this approach means that, as far as the Federal Government is concerned, you are accepting as your standard whatever a job seeker believes it to be. And, if that's the standard, you have to keep track of and report on every single person who thinks they have applied.
What's the alternative? Explicitly state your application procedure. Post it in a prominent position in the Career area on your corporate site and summarize it in every single job posting. Equally as important, tell candidates why you are using the procedure; for example, you might introduce it with a statement that reads: The XYZ Company is committed to focusing on the best qualified applicants for our openings. To ensure that they receive the attention and consideration they deserve, we require that all persons interested in a position with the XYZ Company complete all of the following steps in our standard application procedure. Please note that you will not be considered an applicant unless you comply with each and every step. Then, of course, list the steps.
Why do all of that? How can such a statement help you comply with the EEOC guidelines without having to hire a fulltime staff accountant? Well, in the first place, this statement is likely to decrease the size of your applicant pool and increase its quality. It will almost certainly scare off at least some of the unqualified applicants-because it's very clear that you intend to consider only those who meet your specific requirements-and attract the application of those who are qualified-because it's also clear that you intend to give them the attention they deserve.
But, that's not the only potential benefit to this approach. You can use the steps of your stated procedure to change the paradigm of job application altogether. Right now, most companies accept anyone who applies as an applicant, and then, they screen that entire population to find those who are qualified and should be evaluated in-depth. That approach can be reversed, however, simply by requiring that anyone who wants to be considered an applicant must first pass through a job-related screen ... so long as that step appears in your stated procedure. The screen can be implemented as part of an auto-responder to someone's expression of interest in a position or it can even be embedded in the job posting, itself. However, it's done, the key is that the screen must be related to effective job performance and applied to everyone.
There are several advantages to moving from a traditional application-then-screen approach to this screen-then-apply strategy:
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Once, again, it will likely decrease the number of applicants you have to track and keep records on-as non-qualified persons self-select out-and increase the quality of your applicant pool-as the best and brightest realize they have a better shot at rising to the top.
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Your recruiters get to stop acting as screens-eliminating the unqualified-and instead, spend more of their time helping to make fine-grained distinctions among qualified applicants-thereby cutting your time to fill and improving your quality of hire.
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The return on asset that you capture from your corporate career site and/or the return on investment you earn from job postings on commercial recruitment sites, as measured by hiring manager satisfaction scores, will undoubtedly go up, probably even way up.
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And, you will be able to comply fully with EEOC reporting requirements and not have to capture data on the half of the North American population who will click on the Submit button and apply for any job they think sounds cool, regardless of their credentials for the position.
In essence, I'm proposing that we view the EEOC definition not as a new regulatory requirement, but as an opportunity to improve our recruiting performance, and that we act on that vision.
Thanks for reading,
Peter
Who is Peter Weddle? Peter Weddle is a recruiter, HR consultant and business CEO turned author and commentator. Described by The Washington Post as "... a man filled with ingenious ideas," he has earned an international reputation, pioneering concepts in Human Resource leadership and employment. He has authored or edited over two dozen books and been a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, The National Business Employment Weekly and CNN.com. Today, he writes two newsletters that are distributed worldwide and oversees WEDDLE's LLC, a print publisher specializing in the field of human resources. WEDDLE's annual Guides and Directory to job boards are recognized for their accuracy and helpfulness, leading the American Staffing Association to call Weddle the "Zagat of the online employment industry."
© Copyright 2007 WEDDLE's LLC.
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