Techdirt

A few months ago we wrote about the problems companies are facing due to a 1979 regulation saying that they need to record the race and gender of every job applicant who comes there way. The problem, of course, is that in the day of the internet, thousands of people apply for jobs, many of whom have no real interest in getting those jobs. The internet makes it more difficult to determine who is really an applicant and who is not - though, the law states that just about anyone is to be considered an applicant. This has placed a huge burden on companies that often need to hire people just to track down the race and gender - which often upsets many of the candidates who feel that it's being used for discrimination (and not the other way around). Of course, some are now saying that companies are fighting back against this rule in order to make it easier for them to discriminate again.

Black and white old school law meets infinite scale and shades of gray. It's a real problem. The law assumes an old model: workers responding to classified ads. Today, both parties see more of the labor marketplace (more jobs, more candidates). And both parties have many styles of interaction at their disposal beyond the application form: mailing list sign-ups, reading or subscribing to a candidate's blog, meeting in a chat room or trade show, schmoozing at Ryze. And the data employers collect is often temporary: If you download a thousand resumes and delete 950 of them five minutes later, are they all candidates or just the final fifty?  

How to respond?

First, this is a great opportunity. If you run private job boards for companies, act as an infomediary. Collect and protect candidate race/gender data and sanitize their profiles before employers see them. Share aggregate statistics with employers, so they are covered by the law. Protect employers from selecting candidates based on race and gender. With this regime, employers don't pair up race/gender with a specific candidate until selection for an interview.

Second, define "candidate" in your policy handbook as someone who submits a résumé or profile for a specific position. This ties data collection to a well-defined process.

Third, participate in the regulatory process. Share your real world problems with state and federal regulatory panels.

Fourth, keep working the labor market using your full toolkit. The laws will catch up.