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When recruiting new employees, you can extend your talent search considerably by placing help-wanted ads. But be careful; poorly worded ads can also provide evidence of discrimination, or even create binding contracts with your new workers. Either can come back to haunt you.
"For example, suppose you do not hire a certain applicant, and the poorly written ad is later presented as one bit of evidence that you had discriminatory motives," says Michael S. Horne, an employment law specialist with Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. Your ads should reflect no bias against individuals by their race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or handicaps.
Smaller companies are not immune from charges of hiring discrimination, according to Edward B. Miller, senior labor counsel at the Chicago law firm of Pope, Ballard, Shepard & Fowle. "While there are some requirements as to the minimum number of employees for companies to be covered by federal law," he says, "many States now have anti-discrimination-laws similar to federal law, which apply even if a company has one or two employees."
The New York state constitution, for example, has a provision against discrimination which applies to all employers, regardless of size. And its Division of Human Rights has identified key words which, if present in help-wanted ads, are considered evidence of hiring bias.
State laws often expand the concept of individual rights into new areas. "Sometimes state law can be more restrictive than federal law," warns Mark L. Goldstein, an employment law attorney with the New York law firm of Squadron, Ellenoff, Plesent, Sheinfeld & Sorkin. Some states add marital status to the list of protected conditions. California protects against discrimination by medical condition. Hawaii and other states protect against bias by arrest or court records.
The most common problems occur when employers print ads that suggest age or gender bias, or that perpetuate an unbalanced work force. Employers should avoid using binding language in the ads, and the content of the ads should be monitored, both within the company and at the employment agency.
WORDING THAT SUGGESTS AGE BIAS. Age bias may be the easiest mistake found in help-wanted ads. "By now, most people know you can't refer to having preferences by age," says Miller. "But many people do...