Numerous court decisions — including a landmark Supreme Court case — have stated that employers have a responsibility to train employees on how to avoid discrimination in the hiring and promotion processes.


Why Train on This Topic?

The landmark Supreme Court case, Kolstad v. American Dental Association, and subsequent cases have made it clear that employers should train their employees on how to avoid discrimination in the hiring and promotion processes. In the 2001 case, Mathis v. Phillips Chevrolet, Inc., the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an employer’s failure to train supervisors on how to avoid discrimination in the hiring process amounts to “reckless indifference” and that damages to punish the employer should be awarded.

This course teaches practical skills for lawfully and effectively interviewing applicants for hire or promotion. In particular, employees learn how to:

• Effectively interview applicants to determine their qualifications for the job usingbehavior-based interviewing techniques
• Avoid unlawful or poorly phrased questions and comments
• Select the best candidate and properly document the selection

How is the Course Information Delivered?

Through a series of interactive exercises, employees learn practical skills for conducting effective and lawful interviews and properly documenting their interviews and hiring decisions. Below are examples of interactive exercises from the course.

Example 1: Interview Critique
One of your colleagues, Joanne, recently interviewed an applicant for an open administrative assistant position. You are asked to watch the interview and decide if any of Joanne’s questions or comments are potentially unlawful, or lawful but poorly phrased. Can you identify which ones are inappropriate and why?

Example 2: Interview Simulation
You are interviewing a candidate for an open administrative assistant position. You are told that the ideal applicant would present a professional appearance, be very organized, be able to attend an out-of-town conference in two months, speak Spanish, and be likely to become a long-term employee with your organization.

The candidate is a Pakistani woman who is pregnant and who wears a scarf around her head for religious reasons. You choose which questions to ask and the applicant answers your questions. You must gather enough information to decide whether the applicant meets each of the job’s requirements. At the same time, you must avoid asking any unlawful or poorly phrased questions. After you conclude your interview, you discover whether you obtained all of the relevant information.