You have a key sales job open.  One of the applicants you interview says, “I need to be in a white territory.  The territory I have right now with my current employer has too many black people in it.  I’m someone who appeals to whites.  If you give me a white territory, I’ll make you a lot […]

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I must give credit for this post to a colleague, Michael Maslanka, a partner in the Dallas office of Ford & Harrison and the editor of the Texas Employment Law Letter.  He also writes a column called “Work Matters” for In-House Texas.  One of his recent columns was titled “No Jerks Allowed.”  I encourage you to […]

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A few months ago, I did a post about an intern who had lost her student teaching position and was denied her teaching credentials because she had posted some objectionable pictures on her MySpace page.  As I noted at the time, Internet privacy is a hot employment law issue, and situations like this aren’t going away.  If anything, they’re […]

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Gender issues are a common subject on this blog.  After all, these issues arise in the workplace every day and are the cause of employment lawsuits from time to time.
Women are heard to sometimes ask why these issues are still around–why some studies show a continuing gender pay gap–why there’s a glass ceiling.  Click the […]

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Speaking of hiring the best qualified candidate, there’s an article in today’s Washington Post about how, for the top jobs, the federal government is increasingly going outside to find the best qualified candidate, reversing a trend of allowing employees to start low and work their way to the top.
Hmmmm.  I guess that’s being done for all […]

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It’s often said that we try to choose the best qualified candidate for all our jobs.  We can debate whether we’re serious about this principle, but it sounds good.  And, in large part, I think most people involved in the hiring process abide by this principle.
When you’re hiring people for the top jobs in a company, positions […]

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This week’s “Tip of the Week” focuses on the independent contractor myth. Just to show you there’s something to all this, check out a recent article in the Florida Employment Law Letter about an employer whose independent contractors were found by a court to be employees.
FLORIDA NEWS
TAXES:
IRS rules FedEx Ground’s drivers are employees, not […]

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Blackwater Worldwide has been in the news for a long time now.  Hired by the U.S. Government to do various contracting work in Iraq, it’s been under investigation for all sorts of things.  Congress has just announced something else Blackwater is being investigated for: treating employees as independent contractors.
I don’t know what this investigation will show, but […]

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It’s common for those interviewing a job candidate to take notes during the interview.  They are made on the employment application, the resume, or some other document kept in connection with the interview.
Make sure the notes are job related.  They deal with the candidate’s experience.   They deal with his/her skills for the job in question.  […]

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Check out this article from Kiplinger about the possibility of these new rules being proposed by the Department of Homeland Security soon.

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