Resume Spamming Creates Storage, Legal Snags

selan writes "Did you know that federal law requires companies to store a copy of every single resume they receive? This applies to emailed resumes too, regardless of whether the applicant got the company's name wrong or is applying for a job that doesn't exist at the company. Employers not in compliance risk being fined and could lose government contracts. The resulting storage problems are creating massive headaches at companies who are overwhelmed with bulk-emailed resumes. The Baltimore Sun has the story."

Comments

Re:Company looking for experienced developers...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know one of the 3 ladies at MS who reads the emails sent to careers@microsoft.com. She told me that they junk >90% of the resumes, and the rest they dole out to regional recruiters who may or may not look at them. So I doubt bulk emailing will have any effect since, like with most "email your reume to" links, it is totally worthless to begin with.

Re:This is quite simply solved.

[Mwongozi]

Not in the UK.

Sadly, in the UK, there is a law specific to encrypted data that places the burden of proof on you. If you forget the key to some encrypted data that the government decides it wants to read, you can go to jail.

Fun huh?

Oh yes, it's very FUDdy.

[Nurlman]

The requirement at issue is found in the Equal Employment Oppoertunity Commission's regulations interpreting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Title VII prohibits employers of 15 or more persons from discriminating on the basis of race, sex, national origin, religion, etc.

The EEOC has issued regulations that interpret the law. Among those regulations are recommendations as to how long employers should retain various items of paperwork. The article stems from a misunderstanding as to the meaning of 29 C.F.R. s. 1602.14, which states:

Any personnel or employment record made or kept by an employer (including but not necessarily limited to requests for reasonable accommodation, application forms submitted by applicants and other records having to do with hiring, promotion, demotion, transfer, lay-off or termination, rates of pay or other terms of compensation, and selection for training or apprenticeship) shall be preserved by the employer for a period of one year from the date of the making of the record or the personnel action involved, whichever occurs later.

What the article fails to acknowledge is that the EEOC's regulations are nothing more than recommendations, and are neither specifically enforcible by the EEOC nor binding on the Courts. Note 29 C.F.R. s. 1602.12:

The Commission has not adopted any requirement, generally applicable to employers, that records be made or kept.

In other words, the article is pure FUD: the EEOC recommends that you keep applications and resumes for at least a year, but doing so is neither required nor something that you can be punished for. (As a matter of corporate policy, it makes sense to retain bona fide resumes for at least that long in case of litigation, but what is "smart" and what is "required by law" are often two very different things.)

Re:What are we waiting for?!!

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

The law only applies to companies with 15 or more employees. I doubt that he has that many.

Re:Bizarro World

[Farmer Jimbo]

Title VII

One of the reasons you have to keep the resumes on file is to cover your ass in case of EEOC discriminatory hiring suit.