No-Hire

joyce · September 2001

What explanation, if any, is legally due an applicant who has not been selected for a position? Is the company required to provide the applicant with the reasons they were not selected, if the applicant demands such an explanation?

Down_the_Middle · September 2001

There's no legal requirement that I know of; however, a cavalier comment can become a legal issue. What's wrong with telling the candidate the truth? Assuming the decision was job-related, did the candidate not have the position prerequisites, or did you select an individual with greater skills and work experience?

This notion of not telling candidates why they weren't selected is, in my opinion, a great way for someone to speculate and that usually escalates to a belief that they were treated poorly or discriminatorily. If the person was qualified and yet you offered the job to a more qualified person, that's an acceptable response. There's no law against hiring the most qualified person. Now if there's more to this than you've volunteered, then it would be helpful to know more details....(e.g. family relationship, prior employee, managerial directive, etc......)

Gar · September 2001

We're a local government and do not routinely volunteer explanations to off-the-street candidates. If we receive an inquiry we simply say that a more suitable candidate was hired. If they ask for specifics we do not provide them. It may sound cold but we believe it keeps us out of trouble because we very rarely get discrimination charges relatd to hiring.

System · September 2001

I agree with Gar. The less said, the better.

James Sokolowski
Senior Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers

Theresa Gegen TX · September 2001

The only instance I know of where you have to tell the employee the reason is if the reason is based on a credit check. If your company has done a credit check of the applicant, and the applicant is not chosen because of it, the applicant has a right to see the report and respond to it.

This is a technical area of the law covered by the fair credit reporting act. For example, the applicant must be told before hand that a credit check will be done. Generally I tell employers not to do credit checks unless they are related to the specific job.

jgreen · September 2001

I agree wholeheartedly with "Down the Middle." If you've done a good job of hiring, you should be able to state your reasons for selecting whoever you did without having to squirm about it. If you can't explain or defend who (or how) you hire, maybe you need to reevaluate your processes. Because we are a state governmental agency, our hiring process and almost all of the documentation generated by a hiring decision is open to public inspection for at least two years. You better bet we cross our t's and dot our i's! If we can't defend our decision, we don't hire!

No-Hire

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