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Hiring

Use online tests to find best customer service staff

05/01/2006

Because customer service employees are on your front lines every day, don’t just rely on a résumé and a good first impression to choose such vital personnel. New low-cost online tests can help you determine who has the right stuff …

Be Aware of Little-Known Contract-Bias Law … and Its Limits

04/01/2006

If your organization signs contracts for goods or services, it’s important to educate yourself on a little-known federal law that can easily trip you up: the "Section 1981" law …

Basing pay on past salary alone may spark a legal claim

04/01/2006
Issue: Employers often set new hires’ wages, in part, based on salaries at previous jobs.
Risk: A new court ruling says you could run afoul of the Equal Pay Act …

Labor Department to revise foreign worker certification rules

04/01/2006

The U.S. Labor Department is proposing changes to the way non-U.S. citizens are certified for permanent employment in the United States. Specifically, the government would prevent employers from shifting visas from one foreign worker to another …

Asian-American workers: Beware bias, immigration scrutiny

04/01/2006

Following 9/11, the EEOC paid particular attention to employment-discrimination backlash against employees who appeared to be Muslims or of Middle Eastern or South Asian ancestry. But now that effort appears to be broadening. Until recently, the EEOC didn’t view job discrimination against Asian-Americans as a widespread problem. But a new survey changed all that …

 

You’re not required to print handbook in Spanish

04/01/2006

Q. If an employee speaks Spanish and doesn’t understand English, am I required to have my handbooks and other policies translated into Spanish? Is the handbook valid if the employee signs but does not understand the content? —A.B., California

Illegal workers’ presence continues to grow

04/01/2006

Undocumented immigrants now make up almost 5 percent of the U.S. work force, according to a new Pew Hispanic Center study. The number of people living illegally in the country rose by at least 400,000 last year …

Don’t let applicants use your job offer to earn a raise

04/01/2006

Most of your job candidates sincerely want the job. But others may simply try to use your offer as a tool to negotiate a higher salary from their current bosses or other potential employers. Try to determine early on whether job candidates are just using you as a bargaining chip. You can save lots of time by dismissing candidates who were never truly interested …

Recruit online or die: Web hiring hits new milestone

04/01/2006

For the first time, the Internet is producing more than half of all new hires. A Booz Allen Hamilton survey shows that 51 percent of all new hires in 2005 came via some form of Internet recruiting connection …

Smaller organizations: Promote your size in recruiting

04/01/2006

A CollegeGrad.com survey of 500 recent college graduates asked, "Which size company you’d most like to work for?" The response: 70 percent favored small to midsize companies …