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Want to Hire a Veteran? |
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 By Devan Perine and Max Smith
Who wouldn’t want to hire a veteran? Disciplined, team oriented, loyal, well trained, and patriotic all come to mind when considering a veteran. But be aware that there are specific and complex laws relating to preferential (or discriminatory) hiring of veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces. It gets pretty complicated, so we’ve tried to summarize it in the clearest way possible.1
It’s illegal to discriminate AGAINST veterans when hiring.
The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA)2 prohibits discrimination against veterans, just as the Civil Rights act prohibits discrimination against minorities.
It’s also illegal (in most states) to give veterans preferential treatment.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) found that preferential hiring of veterans discriminates against women. Companies have actually been sued for breaking this law. However there are some exceptions – Washington & Oregon are the only states we found that completely allow all private sector companies to preferentially hire vets.3
The exception to the rule:
The EEOC does allow private companies to preferentially hire disabled veterans. You can ask about disabled veteran status on pre-employment applications, but here’s the catch:
- You have to make the question voluntary
- You must include language specifying that the information is being requested for affirmative action purposes
- Refusal to answer must not negatively affect the applicant in any way
Does your company work with the government?
If your company works with any level of government, you need to read this carefully:
- Preferential hiring of veterans is required for any company with a federal contract of over $100,000.4
- State requirements vary, but almost every state requires some sort of preferential veteran hiring for any company doing business with the state.
The federal government and many state governments also require EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) reporting about veterans, but regulations vary depending on company size and by state. Check with the EEOC to make sure your company is in line with the laws.
Here are our recommendations:
- If your company has government contracts AND reports EEO data, you need to ask about veteran status of job applicants. You can include a question about veteran status on your pre-employment application or later in the hiring process.
- Firms who do not work with the government may want to ask about veteran status, but should do so in a “blind” manner to protect themselves from violating EEOC regulation.
- All employers may ask if candidates are disabled veterans as long as they abide by the rules5
Basically – play it safe, and contact the EEOC or your labor attorney to make sure your company is in line with laws and regulations when it comes to hiring veterans.
1 Check with EEOC regulations before pursuing. This is not official data.
2 http://www.dol.gov/elaws/userra.htm
3 Before hiring, double check with the EEOC to verify your state‘s regulations
4 http://www.dol.gov/compliance/laws/comp-vevraa.htm
5 See section on: You can preferentially hire disable veterans |
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Trust but Verify |
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 By Chuck Smith
“Trust but verify,” is a phrase made famous by President Ronald Reagan during arms negotiations with the Soviet Union. When I first heard Reagan say this way back in the ‘80s, I thought it was absurd: if you trust - you don’t need to verify. If you verify - you don’t trust. I was wrong.
If you think about it, “trust but verify” is something we do all the time. For example, when I try out something new (like a new gadget or app) I’m inclined to be a bit wary until I gain more experience using it. But while trying it out, my measure of trust in its ability to work increases or decreases as I use it. In essence, I’m verifying as I go.
This can also be applied to NewHire, which offers a new and different way of looking at candidates for a job. Logging into NewHire for the very first time, it’s common for a new user to wonder whether the screening questions will really yield the best candidates. People worry that if they don’t read every candidate record, they might miss a great resume.
We tell users all the time to trust NewHire to find the right people. But, what about the step where they “verify?”
Recently a new user (and not coincidently an engineer) told us how he “trusted, but verified” our software. Upon logging in for the first time to search his candidates, he decided to read the first 10 candidate profiles and resumes straight through. He was able to quickly see the wide variation in quality among randomly chosen candidates. He marked some as “maybe” and some as “not qualified.”
As a next step, he started a new search; but this time he based the search on the key criteria we had established in advance. Using the Search Candidate form, he selected key criteria and clicked “search now”. He quickly saw that the resulting short list of candidates were a closer match for this employment opportunity.
Now he relies on NewHire to quickly identify the most qualified candidates for the specific position. For him, the NewHire promise is delivered… never read another unqualified resume again.
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Webinar
Schedule: |
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| 3 Steps for Recruiting Top Sales Reps |
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| Hiring great sales people is a challenge for any business. This webinar will cover 3 proven steps that will help you hire the best sales talent for your company. |
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Tuesday, October 25 2011 12:30PM -1:30PM CST
Cost: FREE |
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NewHire Partners with Indeed.com and SimplyHired
All NewHire positions published to our job board now automatically post to Indeed.com and SimplyHired - at no additional cost to our customers!
What does this mean? NewHire job ads now have more exposure to candidates than ever before. This new feature is part of our on-going commitment to provide top-notch recruiting service and hiring expertise to our clients. Learn more about candidate sourcing here. |
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Acculube is a premier distributor of industrial lubricants, metal working fluids and chemical products in the Midwest. They’re known for their excellent service & expertise, and use NewHire’s recruiting software to find the best talent for their company. |
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NewHire is a recruiting software & services company. Our software features applicant tracking, custom screening questionnaires, and simple filtering tools. NewHire allows you to easily identify the best talent so you never read an unqualified resume again. |
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105
W. Madison #702
Chicago, IL 60602
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(877) 923-0054 – Toll Free
(312) 578-0983 – Fax
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