Too Much Information

Human Resources Manager

I am screening resumes for a Customer Service/Admin. Assistant position. I review all the resumes that come in and if the applicants meet the skills requirements, have a reasonable job history and at least somewhat related experience; I will forward them to the manager for the department that has the open position.

I received a resume today, and the very first sentence of the cover letter revealed the answers to 3 questions that would be illegal to ask (age, marital status, parental status).x:o Yipes! What on earth would make a person think that is information that should be included in a cover letter, let alone the leadoff?

I am thinking that perhaps my best option to avoid a future discrimination in hiring suit is to black out that particular sentence and pass it on to the manager and let it stand or fall with him.

Any other ideas?x:-/

Parabeagle

I routinely black out inappropriate information as soon as I receive the resume, before it ever leaves my office. That way there is no way a resume can reach the hiring authority with the information intact. I also initial and date the redaction for my own information.

ray a

That's a good idea Parabeagle. I've often been concerned about this, too. I've heard of some people that highlight the offending statements, return it to the sender, and request it be resubmitted with the highlighted information removed. Seems like a lot of work to go through, though. I'll start using your method.

HR in CA

I still see resumes with dates of graduation from high school and college. What I have done in the past is make a copy of the resume, then black out the portions that could be used to discriminate in hiring for the position. Then pass the copy along to the hiring manager. Then I would file the resume in a place I had control of in the event a discrimination claim is filed.

scottorr

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 09-11-03 AT 07:11AM (CST)[/font][p]I have also experienced the other extreme where the applicant leaves off their dates of employment because you can determine their age based on years of experience. I once had an applicant include a picture, DOB, SS#, height, weight and marital status. There could be many reasons why someone would do this. I think parabeagle has the right idea just black it out.

Hunter1

I think it's a little extreme to black things out on the resume. The HR Dept certainly is part of the screening/hiring process, and they've already viewed the information. Leave it on and deal with it. Are you going to start redacting names that sound like they might be from minorities? First names because they generally reveal sex? Colleges which have a high percentage of minority students?

Don D

I think that if I were to send resumes to a departmental manager with areas of the resume 'blacked out', it would cause such a degree of concern that the person would be considered suspect by the manager. The first thing the manager would do would be run over to my office wanting to know what had been blacked out. No matter what my explanation was, the manager would keep insisting on knowing. If he left my office without the information, I don't think the candidates chances would be too high. I understand the concern you all have and I would have the same. I think the applicant's chances would be better with the information left as submitted to the company. Having seen these types of resumes, I don't recall a manager ever keying off one of those remarks and making a decision based on it. I once had a resume from a woman who, in the first three sentences of the cover letter announced to me; her age, her marital status and the date of her hysterectomy.

Whatever

I have found that when there is too much information on a resume, the applicant usually gives unnecessary and unask for information during the interview. We have several times debated blacking out information. We don't, but it is a concern. I know of one company where an applicant put their age on the application and when some else was hired, tried to sue for age discrimination.

HS

I agree with Don (did I just say that?). It will draw way too much attention to the resume if things are blacked out, more so than the information would have in the first place. Another option would be to just send the resume if that info was in the cover letter. Sometimes though that information is in the resume. Leave it there and keep tabs on the manager that they aren't being discriminatory.

sonny

I vote with Don, Hunter and HS on this one. I want to know why I should go to all that effort for people who are stupid enough to put it on there in the first place.

Parabeagle

If you talk with 10 HR specialists, you'll get 10 different answers. All I can say regarding blacking out inappropriate information is that it's worked for me for 15 years, but you do have to make sure you explain to your hiring authority why you're doing it. The managers here don't think a thing about it, because they know why I do it. For me, it works.

mwild31

Usually, when I receive these types of resumes, I eliminate them based on stupidity of the applicant, rather than any other reason. Which I guess is discrimination too. I hadn't thought about blacking the information out, but I will consider it.

Human Resources Manager

Maybe being in Human Resources this long has made me paranoid, but there's that little voice in the back of my mind saying maybe this applicant isn't stupid, maybe she's smart, and now if we hire anyone other than her or another 35 year-old single mother for the position, she'll sue for discrimination. Arrrgh.

People make my head hurt!#-o

sonny

Good points, I admit I had never thought of . .Always thought stupid vs. slick. Sorry stupid is not a nice word . just in one of those moods. .

ray a

And the interviewees think the same thing about us. A few years ago I interviewed a candidate who graduated from the same small college in Ohio that I did. That is what caused me to interview him in the first place. After the interview was over we chatted briefly about school and I innocently asked him when he graduated - he appeared to be roughly my age. When he hesitated to answer the question, I realized the legal ramifications. I suspect he was thinking about age discrimination and that I was either stupid to ask the question or just being slick.

sonny

Point taken. In this case, when you both went to the same school, it would never cross MY mind that your question was anything but innocent.

Brad Forrister

I think there are many, many applicants who have no idea what questions shouldn't be asked and what information needn't be volunteered. I don't think you run much risk that the person who volunteered the information will successfully use the fact that you didn't black it out to prove that you discriminated. Most courts would look on that the same way they'd view a voluntary confession by a criminal defendant - as long as the police didn't violate Miranda by asking inappropriate questions, anything volunteered by the subject is the subject's own fault. And I can't think of a rationale under which another applicant could complain that he/she was discriminated against because he/she didn't incorrectly include such information in a cover letter.

I tend to agree with Hunter1 - if you correct this, should you also eliminate names that tend to show ethnicity? Should you correct bad grammar?

On the other hand, there's not a lot of downside to blacking the information out - except the additional time it takes for HR to review the resumes.

By the way, I read about a recent study in Chicago which compared the rate at which applicants with mainstream first names and applicants with African-American sounding first names were invited for interviews. Resumes that were identical except for the name were submitted to several Chicago corporations. There was a significant difference in the rate at which interviews were scheduled.

Brad Forrister
Director of Publishing
M. Lee Smith Publishers

mwild31

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 09-11-03 AT 06:51PM (CST)[/font][p]"I think there are many, many applicants who have no idea what questions shouldn't be asked and what information needn't be volunteered."

You know, I agree with this statement, but at the same time it's a professional pet peeve of mine as well. There are so many resources out there for the job applicant to put a resume together that includes how to format and cautions against spelling errors that I do tend to believe that applicants who do not seek these resources out are out of luck if they apply to my organization. Just to illustrate my point, there are so many books (you can get them at Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, second-hand stores, libraries, friends, etc.) you would have to live so remotely not to find one. In addition, applicants have the web, the unemployment office, shelters (help through volunteers), Refugee Forums, the High Schools, paid resume writers, etc. If an applicant is seriously looking for a job & the only way to market themselves (at least initially) is via their resume - why don't they take the time to put one together correctly? I have to say, in my experience, I have received better resumes from our ESL applicants than I have received from our English speaking applicants - namely because the ESL applicants utilize the available resourcs.

Lockerbie

I also block out information, but I keep a copy of the original so that nobody can say that I blacked out something critical and legal for the manager to know!
Just protecting my backside too!