Posted on 08/11/2016 6:13:52 AM PDT by reaganaut1
That’s true and good points.
1. That would not be a good law.
2. You know as much because you are posting here and not on Facebook, Huffington Post, or another libtard site.
3. You are therefore setting up a strawman argument.
4. Concluded from 1-3, you are a dumbass, and may go sit in the corner with a pointy cap while the adults are talking.
I agree with the walk part but unfortunately companies for the most part know they have the upper hand due to 8 years of an Obama economy.
I've changed jobs twice in the Obama Economy. Both times finding a new job was a fairly easy process. Didn't go as fast as I'd like....ideally, I pick a place that I'd like to work, walk in and they hire me on the spot at a 40% higher salary than I was expecting. That hasn't happened yet, ever, but a man can dream.... :-)
Actually, each time, the process took about six months, and a handful of interviews with different companies, then a handful more with the company I eventually wound up at. That's about par for the level of employment I'm at. Even if something wonderful fell out of the sky into my lap, it still would take some time and executive footsie-playing to make the move.
I’m all for it as I have taken the brunt of the “tricks of the trade”. Employers brought this on themselves (donning flameproof undies). Under the guise of “bargaining”, I went through the following drills and wised up very fast.
The first time I answered truthfully, the answer was “We can’t beat that but we will review it after you’ve been here a year.”
Next time I added $5,000 to my current wage and when they pulled that routine, I said “OK” - left the next year when they said “things are tough and we can’t give you a raise”. That was after my team and I saved them $250,000 by devising/coding an Automatic Storage and Retrieval System.
During my searches, I found that some outfits weren’t really looking for people, just wanted to get info to establish a pay schedule.
On a couple, when I knew I didn’t want the job, when they asked that question, I’d ask what the responsibilities would be. The tap-dancing that went on would have made Fred Astaire jealous.
The ones that really ticked me off were those who thought I was retired military (I had worked as a civilian at Camp Pendleton). “Well, since you are retired, you already have one income so we can’t(???) offer you a higher wage.” I asked them that since they paid on perceived need, did they pay a guy who had eight kids more than one who had only one? Pained silence - and then the interview was over.
Finally got into a company that recognized good work and paid accordingly. Stayed with them 17 years until I went into contracting.
Well la-dee-da, who named you hall monitor? I may be a dumbass, but I can still recognize sarcasm when I see it.
Have a bad day.
You didn’t read it he said the law WOULD make him pay fair market wage. Like that is a bad thing.
What kind of creep says this law would FORCE him to pay market wages. Like that is bad.
You have outlined one small example of short-sighted, selfish, destructive, knuckleheaded decision making on the part of a corporation.
Multiply that across the majority of the companies in America, day after day, year after year, involving millions and millions of people.
End result is the anger boils over and the people elect a Communist.
FWIW, it is illegal to ask an applicant for or require an SSN on the job application. It is also illegal to ask for on a job application or during an interview process for their age or DOB (although you can ask if they are at least 18 years old) or for their marital status, whether they have or plan to have children, if female if they are now pregnant or plan to become pregnant, among other things like their religion or ethnicity and whether they own or rent their home. You can ask on the application if the applicant is eligible to work in the US but you cannot ask for proof of citizenship or for their legal work authorization documentation prior to employment, i.e. the I-9 form which can only be completed on the first day of work and no later than the third day of employment and likewise with E-Verify.
State law determines whether you may question applicants about their criminal records. Some states have adopted “ban the box” laws, which prohibit employers from including a question on application forms about criminal records. Some states prohibit employers from asking about arrests that didn’t lead to convictions or expunged records. Some states allow employers to consider only certain criminal convictions in making job decisions. But where you are allowed to ask on the job application about felony criminal convictions, providing false information on the application and as proved in a background check is reason not to hire, to rescind a job offer or to terminate as soon as known.
Only after a job offer has been made in writing, can the employer ask for an SSN and DOB or a driver’s license (but only if driving is an integral part of the job such as driving a company vehicle or driving their personal vehicle as a regular part of their job – most typically for outside sales people), and only on a form separate from the job application and only if it is for the purpose of performing a background check. In which case, the person to whom the job offer has been made, signs a release for the background check to be performed and has to be provided with a document (sometimes a Consumer Credit Protection statement even if they are not doing an actual consumer credit check) that informs the person of their legal rights to dispute should their offer be rescinded based on a background check where the applicant to whom the job offer has been made disputes any incorrect information on the background check or cases where some information like prior employer or education was not able to be confirmed or a negative credit rating that is in dispute.
At my last job we had, on advise from our legal counsel, a policy of destroying background check reports after the 1st 90 days of employment.
An interesting tidbit.
Some applicants object to filling out a job application if they have already submitted their resume, stating that “my resume already has all that information on it”. But on a job application, there is typically a statement just above the signature line stating something like, “I certify that all answers and statements on this application are true and complete to the best of my knowledge. I understand that, should this application contain any false or misleading information, my application may be rejected or my employment with this company terminated.” Since a resume has no such statement, absent a job application with the signed statement, an employer may not be able to rescind a job offer or terminate an employee for providing false information as to prior employment and or education or criminal background.
Interesting reply. I have heard some of these restrictions, but your response is the most detailed I’ve seen. I’m just bookmarking it with my reply since I’m going back into the market soon and am getting toward that “grey” zone. lol
At my last job I responded to all job verification requests for current and former employees.
Under our policy and on advice of our legal counsel all we would confirm for job verifications was their date of hire, their last day of work and their last job title. We would not respond to any questions such as if they left voluntarily or if they were terminated or for what reason they were let go, nor anything regarding as to their performance, their attendance or disciplinary records, safety records, performance review records or whether or not we would consider rehiring them or anything regarding their previous salary or earnings or their bonuses.
And we would not release even that information absent a signed release from the previous employee authorizing us to release even that info. The only exception as to releasing previous earnings history was for mortgage applications and only if on an official HUD form, but again, that also had to be accompanied by a signed release by the previous employee. And we never verbally responded to any phone requests. All requests had to be made in writing and sent either via mail or fax.
Yea, me too re: “that “grey” zone”. I’m over 50 and have been out of work since March. Some say that 50 is the new 40 and 60 is the new 50 but I can tell you, not so much in the current job market.
But it is good to know your rights. There are some employers who still ask illegal job application or job interview questions or try to skirt them by ask them rather stealthily.
FWIW there are some excellent resources on the web for writing resumes and some that even step you through the most typical interview questions including those that are way out of the box and how and to or how not to respond to them.
If you have a spouse, or a friend or a relative willing to help, ask them to go on line and find interview questions, the tougher and more unusual the better, and then have them practice with you; with them playing the part of interviewer and you as the interviewee. It will make you more comfortable with the interview process especially if you’ve not been through it for a while.
FWIW, I’ve been a hiring manager and I hated interviewing people for a job more so than I hated being interviewed for one myself.
As a hiring manager I usually just wanted to know and would ask questions directly and only applicable and related to their ability to do the job and on their past experience, but sometimes the HR folks (and I have a background in HR but also mostly in PR and accounting and no, not ALL of us HR folks are crazy libs) would suggest me asking BS questions like: “If you were stranded on a desert island and could pick only three people to be stranded with, what skills and personality traits do you have that you could add to the team’s survival and what skills and personality traits would you most value among those three with whom you were stranded with and how would you deal with those with whom you disagreed.”
My response to the HR manager who suggested this IMO very stupid question as an interview question was, “Well in a true “Lord Of The Flies” scenario, I would probably be looking for those who could make fire, build shelters and kill animals for food and those willing to kill off the very weakest and useless among us, those with no real life skills, you know like people with HR degrees.”
Fortunately, the HR manager and I were friends and on good terms and she even admitted that it was a stupid question.
I agree; it is being asked to avoid a market rate and instead just offer a slightly higher salary than the previous one (which may be totally unrelated to the position being sought).
In my case the current salary alone is a meaningless figure; it doesn’t take into account a 40 hour workweek (while most jobs now require more), good health benefits at a low cost for my family, a lot of accrued vacation time/holidays, and a great commute. Offering me $10K more would not be enough for me to switch jobs, as much as I need the money, so asking this question would probably generate an unacceptable offer.
I cannot speak for ALL HR people or for what goes on at ALL companies but at my last job I was asked to take over the “salary administration” role, in addition to my role as PR and HRIS manager. I have a background in both HR and in Benefits administration and prior to that in corporate accounting, so I’m more of a number cruncher type, a very analytical type, sort of a geek in that respect.
For me it had nothing to do with righting grievances or ignoring qualifications but it was blind to race, age, gender. The job description, the qualifications and experience, educational level, etc. in the written job description was what dictated the salary range and either the applicants met the requirements of the job description or they didn’t. I actually found that new part of my job quite interesting and challenging and FWIW I did a very good job in that role.
Setting market rates for jobs, while not always an exact science, does rely on hard data. I had subscriptions to 3 different job/salary range databases, two of which were geared toward manufacturing. And I could, if necessary also use an outside consultant to determine the market rate for a new position if I couldn’t find a comparable in any of my databases and could also use my membership in SHRM for additional research. When grading a new job, I often used multiple sources and then averaged them out to come up with a reasonable salary grade.
All job titles were tied to a job description and in turn, each job title was assigned to a salary range based on the most current market data based on the job description. And every two years or so we re-evaluated them and upgraded or downgraded ranges if necessary. Hourly positions both in admin and in manufacturing jobs were tied to local market rates as recruiting was local. But for some positions; upper management, executive and for higher level engineering and scientific positions, the salary range might reflect a broader and a higher range given that we may have to recruit on a national basis which may also factor in re-location expenses and industry norms for bonuses.
I had some hiring managers who would submit to me, a new job description for a new position which I would have to review and approve, i.e. making sure the job description included all the necessary components and met our template and format for consistency and that the job title and the job description matched and made sense before assigning it to a salary range and before passing it on to the recruitment team.
So for instance if a new job title was Manufacturing Process Engineer I but in the newly written job description, the requirements as to years of experience and education levels was equal to or more than the existing job title and the existing job description for a Manufacturing Process Engineer II, I’d reject it and work with the manager to either re-write the new job description or get them to consider that what they actually needed and were looking for was a Manufacturing Process Engineer II. Or perhaps even look at and re-evaluate the Manufacturing Process Engineer II salary grade if it was out of date.
I also recall a job description that was submitted to me by a manger for salary grading for a Polymer Plastics Chemist. The job description as written by the manager required 10+ years of experience and a PhD as opposed to a BS and a big laundry list of achievements including holding patents for new polymer plastics formulations. When I gave the manager the commensurate salary range based on the job description he wrote and based on both local and national market data, he freaked out and said he only wanted to pay a salary at half that range because he had a budget.
I had to tell him, (and also after consulting with the HR Director and with our outside recruiting firm for those types of specialized positions), that he’d either have to find more room in his budget or he’d have to re-write the job description and lower his expectations because it would be a waste of everyone’s time - HR’s time, the recruiter’s time and the applicant’s time, to try to recruit someone with that level of experience and with a PhD, but only offer half of what the market said that job paid.
FWIW, we also had some hiring managers who would interview and vette qualified pre-screened applicant after applicant after applicant, sometimes having them come in for multiple interviews, sometimes for higher level positions, flying them in and putting them up in a hotel at our expense, but would then drag their feet on making a hiring decision. Then they’d come back to HR to ask us to make a job offer to a candidate that had interviewed with us 3-6 months earlier and the manager was somehow amazed and perplexed that the applicant was no longer interested or available and had already accepted another position elsewhere, but then tried to blame HR for not being able to fill the position.
So yes, HR is always at fault and they (we) are always the bad guys or gals / s
I’m in my 50s as well, but I’m looking because that’s how you get a raise as a contractor, and I need to get ahead of the cycle. Every year we have the sword over our head, and the big axe comes out every five. I’ve just been in my position too long and need to move on. My job as a DBA reduces age discrimination, but it’s getting worse all the time. I have many friends who went years without being employed because they were “overqualified.”
It just goes to show the short-sighted view of many companies. They prefer hiring inexperienced workers so they don’t have to pay decent wages. It’s been my experience that you get what you pay for.
I am still in the Reserve, so last time I was really out of work, I deployed for six months. I must have put in 1000 resumes before landing this position. However, the field is rather small, so I can jump to another contract pretty easily.
I’m too old for dumb questions, so I will just answer them facetiously. Some people have accused me of having a dry sense of humor, and I can deliver most any line with a straight face. If a company doesn’t have a sense of humor, I don’t want to work there. That goes for pretty much anything—they have a need or they wouldn’t be hiring. If they don’t have a need, or I’m not a good fit, I’d rather not waste time.
Good luck on your search. It’s a tough market, but you certainly have what it takes. God go with you, my FRiend.
Yup - I always add about $20k to my actual base pay when they ask plus another 10% of base on other comp (stock/bonus)
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