by William Murphy
There are so many questions that employers are not allowed to ask potential employees, how do you know what information you can request on an employment application? Read on for items that should be part of your application for employment.
While you can't ask a potential employee his age or what year he graduated from high school, you can ask the person about what schools they attended and what degrees, if any, were obtained. You can also ask if the potential employee is over age 18 and if the applicant is legally authorized to work in the United States.
You can't ask a potential applicant other discriminatory questions such as whether he is married or has children or plans to have children. Likewise, you shouldn't ask about disabilities or physical conditions or characteristics. You can ask the applicant if he will be available to work certain hours, weekends and holidays, or overtime. You can also ask the applicant if they are able to perform specific functions of the job such as answering the phone, doing filing, etc.
It is also permissible for you to inquire whether an applicant has been convicted of any crimes, although it is not acceptable to ask about arrests that did not lead to convictions. You probably want to make an inquiry into the applicant's criminal history to avoid possible negligent hiring claims if you do hire the person and they end up criminally harming someone.
You should ask for references from people that have had a working relationship with the applicant, not just friends or relatives. Be sure to include a waiver as part of your application that gives prior employers permission to disclose information to you. The waiver should state that the applicant authorizes you to examine his background including prior work history. It should also state that the applicant waives any rights to sue any person who provides information to you as a result of the reference request. This may help you obtain honest and useful information about the applicant from former employers.
You should include on your employment application a statement that lets the applicant know for how long the application is active. Keep applications on file for that period of time. If an applicant is not hired during that time period but wants to continue to be considered for available positions, he will need to fill out another application. This will let you make decisions based on current information about the applicant and provide some specified time period for destroying old files.
Finally, you should let applicants know right on the application that, if they are hired, any misrepresentations about anything on their employment application will be cause for their dismissal, even if the misrepresentation is discovered after they have been working a period of time.
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