Are We Starting to See Subliminal Discrimination by Hiring Managers?

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Few job seekers who fail to get an interview know the reason, but Michelle Chesney-Offutt said a recruiter told her why she lost the chance to pitch for an information technology position.

The 54-year-old, who had been laid off from her IT job in Illinois, said the recruiter who responded to her online resume two years ago liked her qualifications and was set to schedule an interview. But he backed away, she said, when he learned she had been out of work for 13 months.

The employer he represented would not consider applicants who were unemployed more than six months, she said.

“What they don’t consider is that these are not normal times,” said Chesney-Offutt, who was unemployed for nearly three years before landing a job.

Stephen Singer of RJG.com reports, as high unemployment persists more than four years after the start of the recession — and nearly three years after it was officially declared over — many who have struggled for years without work said they face discrimination.

As of January, California, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Tennessee were considering legislation to prohibit employers from discriminating against the unemployed in help-wanted ads or in direct hiring or in screenings by employment agencies, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“There’s much more subliminal discrimination against the unemployed that’s hard to document,” said Lynne Sarikas, director of the MBA Career Center at Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration. “Hiring is an art, not a science. You rely on a gut reaction.”

For example, employers may suspect that an unemployed applicant is seeking an available job for the wrong reasons, she said.

“A manager is going to get the vibe that they’ll take anything to get a job and if something better comes along they’re out the door,” Sarikas said.

Also, some long-term unemployed applicants may come across as too urgent for work, “and desperation doesn’t translate well in an interview,” she said.

Employers generally expect job candidates — even while unemployed — to show they did some work such as volunteering or working temporary jobs, she said.

Terri Michaels, who manages a Hartford employment firm that primarily staffs temporary employees, criticized hiring practices that screen out unemployed job seekers. “People who did not work in any capacity, didn’t do anything are not as desirable to prospective employers,” Michaels said. “One has to question, is that discriminatory? I don’t know.”

Michaels said employers may use unemployment to weed out applicants for no other reason than to cut down a huge number of resumes for coveted job openings.

“When you have 14 million unemployed, everyone is applying for everything,” she said. “You have to be somewhat discriminating.”

“Don’t sit at home. Make yourself available to your community,” said Assemblywoman Celeste M. Riley.

Still, she said she backed the legislation after colleagues showed her employment ads specifying that the unemployed should not bother applying.

“I found that absolutely reprehensible,” Riley said. “When you apply for a job, you should be viewed based on your skill level, not whether you have a job or not.”

To view the complete article, click here: http://www.rgj.com/article/20120327/BIZ05/303270037/For-unemployed-hiring-bias-shows-up
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Time to Spring Clean Your Resume

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