Job Opening Posting

HCA

I work for county government. When a job opens up, we send to our local Job Service (who also posts it on-line), local colleges, and post it in our courthouse. Is it a problem that we aren't running the openings in the local newspaper? I think it's never been done because of cost.

Don D

I'm not sure what you mean by, "Is it a problem....". There are all sorts of reasons to advertise in the paper, such as: meeting a county personnel policy requirement to do so (if it exists), expanding your announcement to increase your applicant pool, attempting to 'steal' a good employee from another company, meeting an INS Dept of Justice requirement, caving in to an EEOC conciliatory agreement and hitchiking onto the newspaper's website for duplicate posting. If you have none of those concerns, I don't see that it could be a problem. There are probably just as many reasons NOT to advertise in the paper. A few are: the cost, a landslide of resumes that you don't have time to sift through and opening yourself up to a thousand telephone calls.

HCA

Sorry. I should have been more specific. When I say "problem" I mean, "Can we get sued - successfully (I know we can ALWAYS get sued)?" We don'thave a policy that requires it. I am unaware of State law that requires it (although I'm still looking under Human Rights just to be sure). I just didn't know if anyone saw any potential arguments for a violation - discrimination or otherwise.

Theresa Gegen TX

The potential argument for discrimination would be that your current methods do not reach a representative sample of the population -- but that your current methods effectively screen out some minority groups (intentional or not).

So what you need to determine is: "Are you reaching the relevant population by current methods." If your local population has a high number of minorities, and you are never getting any applications from minorities, this may raise a red flag that your current methods are not broad based. Advertising in the paper may be one way to solve this (if there is indeed a problem).

Good Luck!

Don D

If by some stretch of someone's imagination you have the burden of proving that you exposed your opportunities to a representative cross section of the relevant labor force, you met that burden when you posted your position with the Local Employment Security Office. They exposed your opening through the statewide and nationwide job bank systems in thousands of offices containing thousands of kiosks, job bank viewers and computer screens. I maintain that you have no such burden in the first place. There is no law or requirement that an employer post openings in a newspaper, unless you have an agreement with the EEOC to do that or have been ordered to do it by a court and I'm sure neither is the case.

HCA

Thank you. I feel confident that we're covered. You've been very helpful. [x:-)]