Hiring managers being picky as unemployment rates remain high

MSNBC, “some hiring managers are routinely excluding the unemployed, smokers, people with accents or non-traditional hair styles, college dropouts, and anyone with bad credit”. This can go further to including Facebook background checks as well as turning down smokers for jobs. “It’s a buyer’s market,” said Stephen Bronars, an economist with Welch Consulting, a labor and employment consultancy. “Companies are inundated with applications, especially since it’s so easy to apply for jobs online,” Bronars said. Clearly, a hiring manager can’t refuse to hire an individual based on gender, race or religion because he or she would be breaking the nation’s labor laws. But it’s not always clear whether many recent restrictions on hiring that have become more prevalent are legal or not. Even if illegal measures were being practiced, it’s very difficult to prove. These hiring restrictions are making it ever more difficult for people who are unemployed to get into the work force. With so many people to choose from, companies can install a long list of requirements and still have a decent size list of candidates suitable for the job. Hopefully, as the economy improves and more jobs are created, these restrictions will gradually fade away – but for now, it’s a worrying trend.]]>