Applying For Jobs Online: Examining the Legality of Internet-Based Application Forms J. Craig Wallace Mary G. Tye Stephen J.

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1 Applying For Jobs Online: Examining the Legality of Internet-Based Application Forms J. Craig Wallace Mary G. Tye Stephen J. Vodanovich The content of 41 Internet-based state applications were examined for their compliance with EEO guidelines. The results indicated that 97.5% of the application forms possessed at least one inadvisable question, with an average of 4.2 per form. The most frequent inadvisable questions pertained to past salary, age, and driver s license information. In addition, the application forms of states with larger populations contained significantly more problematic items as compared to less populous states. Despite the widespread use of application forms for personnel selection, research examining the legality of questions contained on these forms has been relatively sparse. This is surprising given that the content and use of application blank information must comply with various professional and legal guidelines. It is important to note that the existence of specific questions (e.g., race, gender, age) on application forms are not illegal per se, but their use in a discriminatory manner is against EEO guidelines. That is, asking non job-related questions that bear on membership in a protected group may be suggestive of discrimination.6 It is also inadvisable to ask about arrest records or dishonorable discharges from the military because the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has advised that the answer might adversely impact minorities. The limited research conducted in this area demonstrates that illegal (or inappropriate) application blank items are quite common. For instance, Burrington examined 50 state application forms and found an average of inappropriate questions per application blank. The most common questionable items were those that requested information on gender, race, education dates, and handicaps. Miller analyzed the applications of 151 Fortune 500 corporations and reported that 98.7% of application forms had at least one questionable inquiry, with an average of 9.74 problematic questions per form. Lowell and DeLoach examined the application forms of 50 nationally known companies and found that 25% of the forms contained questions in all of the following six areas: name, age, military service, physical disability, education dates, and arrest records. Jolly and Frierson surveyed members of the American Society for Public Administration and discovered that every application reviewed had at least one flawed item, with the most common (84%) being related to salary issues such as past salary and expected salary. Vodanovich and Lowe examined the application forms of 88 retail companies and found an average of 7.4 inappropriate questions per form. The more frequent problematic items were questions about past salary (98.9%), 1

2 minimum acceptable salary (72.7%), age (54.5%), and information about relatives (50%).11 Table 1 provides a summary of findings from prior research examining the content of application blank forms. Table 1. Summary of Prior Application Blank Studies The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the content of Internetbased application forms used by U.S. states. This approach is particularly relevant given the increasing use of the Internet for selection purposes, as well as for other employment-related practices such as recruitment, assessment, and training. A second objective was to examine whether the number of inappropriate application inquiries would vary as a function of state size. Given the results of prior research, it was hypothesized that a vast majority of online state application forms would contain potentially illegal or problematic questions. It was also expected that several inadvisable items would exist per application blank. Regarding the second objective, Vodanovich and Lowe did not find a significant difference in the number of inadvisable application blank items as a function of company size. Due to the limited research on this issue, no 2

3 specific hypothesis was proposed regarding the impact of state size on the number of inappropriate application blank questions. Method Sample and Procedure The present study examined Internet-based application forms from 41 of the 50 states in the United States. Nine of the states did not have an online application available at the time of the study. The applications that were chosen were the general application forms required for the majority of jobs within a given state. All applications were accessible to the general public and did not require any correspondence with the state employment agency. Each state s home page was obtained from links provided by the web site located at State population data was gathered from web site of the U.S. Census Bureau ( Consistent with the categories identified by Ash14 and the research of Vodanovich and Lowe,15 each application blank was evaluated for items representing one of 47 inquiry categories (e.g., age, marital status, sex, education, credit rating, health). Following the scoring system employed by Vodanovich and Lowe,16 application blank items representing information from each category were scored as not asked, legitimately asked, or inadvisable. Examples of questions coded as legitimately asked were those requesting proof of U.S. citizenship or minimum age (e.g., 18 years of age or older) if these were appropriate requirements for the job. Items considered to be inadvisable (although not technically illegal) were ones from which the information obtained could lead to discriminatory practices against members of various protected groups. For instance, items asking an applicant to provide the year he or she graduated from high school was scored as inadvisable since this data could indicate the age of an applicant. The collection of certain data for EEO compliance purposes (e.g., gender, race) was considered legitimate if this information was collected separately from the online application and was provided voluntarily. However, if the EEO form was contained within the application blank itself or did not contain a disclaimer (e.g., that providing the information was voluntary, that the form would be separated and stored anonymously), then this information was scored as inadvisable. Results Two raters separately evaluated the content of each application blank. An interrater reliability of.93 was obtained, with discrepancies being subsequently resolved by consensus. The analysis indicated that 97.5% of application forms contained at least one questionable item with an average of 4.2 per form. The most commonly asked inappropriate item categories contained on the application forms and inadvisable EEO forms included: past salary, age, gender, race, handicaps, driver s license, birthplace, and conviction/court records. 3

4 A median split was performed to dichotomize state population (in thousands) into low (N = 21; M= 1663) versus high (N = 20; M = 6345) groups. Given the relatively small sample size, a Kruska l l - Wallis non-parametric test was performed in order to examine the impact of state size on the number of inadvisable application blank items. The results indicated that the mean rank of inadvisable application blank items from larger states (M = 25.4) contained significantly more inadvisable application blank questions than those from less populous states (M = 16.8); x2 (1) = 5.8, p <.05. Discussion The results of this study indicate that Internet-based state application forms contain a considerable number (M = 4.2) of inadvisable items, with 40 out of 41 of the forms containing at least one questionable item. These results are 4

5 congruent with the findings of previous researchers who investigated application blank content in the private17 and public sector. In the present study, the most common type of inappropriate questions were about past salary, age, and driver s license information, which is also consistent with prior research.19,20,21 Questions about past salary are considered inadvisable since they can perpetuate the existence of lower salaries for women and other minorities, as compared to white males. That is, if employers base a starting salary on an applicant s prior earnings, minorities and women will likely be offered less pay. Although the majority of applications did not explicitly ask about age, many contained inquiries about an applicant s education dates (e.g., year of high school graduation), which can be used to infer an applicant s age. Asking for driver s license data (e.g., whether an applicant possessed a driver s license, driver s license number) is problematic since the possession of a license may not be a valid job requirement, minorities are less likely to have a license, and demographic information about an applicant can be obtained from a driver s license number. Possible remedies to these and other questionable items are contained in Table 3. 5

6 Another problematic area was the manner in which EEO information was collected. The EEO forms on many application forms did not indicate that the data would be processed separately from the application blank information and/or that providing the information was voluntary. One alternative solution would be to mail or the EEO form to an applicant after they have completely filled out the employment application. The form could then be returned to the appropriate EEO officer rather than to the parties responsible for hiring. Compared to the findings of previous research, the content of state applications used in the present study possess fewer problems in certain areas. For instance, questions about race were present on only 4.9 % of application forms, while inquiries about minimal acceptable salary were asked on less than 10% of the forms. Past research has found much higher rates for both race (56%) and minimum salary (72.7%). At first glance, the finding that the most populous states (presumably with access to greater resources) ask significantly more inadvisable items is somewhat surprising. However, this may be partly due to the fact that the application forms of states with larger population size were about twice as long as those from less populated states. Even so, this finding is noteworthy since larger states will likely have a greater number of job applicants who may be affected by the content of the application blank questions. It should be noted that the findings of the present study may not generalize to all state agencies. That is, the application forms used by specific state agencies may not possess similar content to the general state application forms used here. Another limitation is that several states (N = 9) did not have online application forms that were available for analysis. It would be beneficial for future research in this area to examine why employers continue to ask inappropriate questions. Such a study would help to reduce or eliminate the existence of these types of items. Also, studies that investigate the on-line applications of private sector organizations would assist in determining the generalizability of the present results. 6

7 Notes 1 L. A. Pace & L. F. Schoenfeldt Legal concerns in the use of weighted applications, Personnel Psychology, 30: D. D. Burrington A review of state government employee application forms for suspect inquiries, Public Personnel Management, 11: S. J. Vodanovich & R. H. Lowe They ought to know better: The incidence and correlates of inappropriate application blank inquiries, Public Personnel Management, 21: American Educational Research Center, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. Washington, D.C.: American Educational Research Association. 5 Pre-employment Inquiries and Equal Employment Opportunity Law EEO Compliance Manual. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. 6 Pre-employment Inquiries and Equal Employment Opportunity Law, D. D. Burrington, E. Miller An EEO examination of employment applications, Personnel Administrator, 25: R.S. Lowell & J. A. Deloach Equal employment opportunity: Are you overlooking the application form? Personnel, 59: J. P. Jolley & J. G. Frierson Playing it safe, Personnel Administrator, 34: S. J. Vodanovich & R. H. Lowe, S. Hays Hiring on the web, Workforce, 78: S. J. Vodanovich & R. H. Lowe, P. Ash The legality of pre-employment inquiries: A guide to state and other jurisdictional rules and regulations. Park Ridge, IL:London House. 15 S. J. Vodanovich & R. H. Lowe, S. J. Vodanovich & R. H. Lowe, S. J. Vodanovich & R. H. Lowe, R. P. Coady An analysis of state library job application forms for compliance of EEOC guidelines, Journal of Library Administration, 7: D. D. Burrington, S. J. Vodanovich & R. H. Lowe, J. P. Jolley & J. G. Frierson, D. D. Burrington, S. J. Vodanovich & R. H. Lowe,

8 Authors J. Craig Wallace University of West Florida Psychology Department, Bldg. # University Parkway Pensacola, FL J. Craig Wallace is a graduate student at the University of West Florida in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. His interests include legal and organizational issues, boredom, vigilance, and test construction. Mary G. Tye University of West Florida Psychology Department, Bldg. # University Parkway Pensacola, FL Mary G. Tye is an Industrial/Organizational Psychology graduate student at the University of West Florida. Her interests include workplace gender issues, job selection, and test development. Stephen J. Vodanovich Associate Professor University of West Florida Psychology Department, Bldg. # University Parkway Pensacola, FL Stephen J. Vodanovich is an Associat 8