EOE Concerns w/ Electronic-only Job Application? 402
Khyber asks: "Jobs seem to be increasingly harder to find in the real world today, and even harder to obtain due to the increased proliferation of on-line-only or electronic-only job applications. I know this firsthand - as today I attempted to apply for a job at Kroger's, only to discover that I had to fill out one of these electronic applications in their 'Career Opportunities Kiosk.' The machine miserably failed to get past the second page of the multi-paged the application. I've asked the manager if there was a paper application to fill out (why do I need to know how to use a computer to stock shelves?) and he has told me that I -must- fill out the application on their broken and defunct Dell Genesis Terminal. Are there legal concerns that I should be looking at, here?"
"Kroger's claims to be an EOE employer, however I feel that I am being denied my equal opportunity to gain employment due to the failings of a broken piece of software and hardware, and the refusal by the manager to give me a paper application to fill out, as an alternative. Can this be considered discriminatory to those of a lower education level in their attempt to obtain a job, as well? Are there any laws on the books that give me the opportunity to fill out the application on paper as opposed to digitally?"
Submitter totally misunderstands what EOE means (Score:5, Informative)
"Equal opportunity employer" means they do not discriminate on the basis of legally protected traits (such as those protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 [wikipedia.org] - race, color, religion, sex, or national origin). Education (or lack there) is *NOT* a protected characteristic. They are perfectly free to say that people who have below a certain level of education need not apply. (And the reverse is also true - I remember hearing about a police department in New Hamshipre that would not take applicants with above a 105 IQ, citing the high rate of burnout due to boredom)
no you need to stop being a whiney bitch. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.kroger.com/careers.htm [kroger.com]
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Cost (Score:3, Informative)
Hiring costs are a big deal, especially for large companies. A crapload of stuff can be automated. For example, if there's a minimum age requirement, the application software can automatically ignore all the 17 year olds who applied for a bartending job instead of having some HR person manually go through a stack of applications to sort out the idiots who applied even though they couldn't legally qualify. Trimming down the applicants to those who meet the minimum job requirements can save lots of time and money.
It's also easier to re-evaluate previous applicants when there are new job openings. Just because someone hired for one job doesn't mean you want to ignore them for future jobs. An automated system makes this possible. Paper applications are too much of a pain to review months later.
Data retention is another big deal. I know in California you are required to retain applications for one year (might be a Federal law, not sure). It's a damn sight easier to keep the data in electronic form rather instead of a big ass filing cabinet filled with thousands of applications you will never look at (nothing says you have to look at the applications, just retain them).
Your opportunity (Score:2, Informative)
Education level discrim. can be legal, here's why. (Score:3, Informative)
However, it's progressively easier to claim that the education is required, as more and more jobs require employees to have literacy and problem-solving skills even at low levels.
stocking shelves (Score:3, Informative)
Inventory control and RFID, to name a couple of reasons
Re:Discrimination / lower education level (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bureau of Labor Statistics == BuLlSh** (Score:3, Informative)
This is not true.
In BLS definitions, people are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey week. This includes not only regular full-time year-round employment but also all part-time and temporary work. Also, people with a regular job who did no work for exceptional reasons (vacation, paternity/maternity leave, illness, strike, etc) are considered employed.
People are considered unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior four weeks, and are currently available for work.
So the major problem is that people who are seeking full-time jobs but are working even a single hour a week are counted as employed. Less egregiously, if you stop looking for work--say you want a job, but spend months looking and finally get discouraged and stop job hunting for 4 weeks--you're not considered unemployed.
But if you're looking for work and do not have a job, you are counted as unemployed even if you're not drawing unemployment.
It also does not count situations of underemployment, such as an IT professional working at Kroger because local companies' IT departments are fully staffed.
And it probably shouldn't. You don't have a right to have a cushy job doing whatever your main interest is at a huge hourly wage.
I mean, if I'm working as an entry level programmer but would like to be a senior engineer, should I be considered unemployed? Or if I'm a senior engineer but want to be a non-tech manager? Or if I'm a manager but want to be a writer?
Re:Bureau of Labor Statistics == BuLlSh** (Score:3, Informative)
Then "many places" are printing incorrect information.
Unemployment numbers count people who are not employed and who are looking for work, regardless of whether they're receiving money from unemployment insurance. The rate does decline when people can't find work and give up looking, but it includes recent graduates who are looking for work.
More information than most people could even find interesting is available here [bls.gov].
Like this (Score:3, Informative)
any other questions?
Re:Regulations Regulations Regulations (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Regulations Regulations Regulations (Score:3, Informative)
Some of those *are* legal to ask. Birthdate? OK. Race? OK, but you don't have to answer (they collect this data to prove that they're not throwing away all black applications, for example). How you get to work? OK.