There’s some good news for job seekers who have been faced with financial issues, or have had brushes with the law.

Fewer employers are snooping into your criminal or credit background today.

Criminal background checks have become increasingly popular partly because technology has made it easier to dig up dirt and partly because hiring managers want any tools to help them weed through the many applicants, given the tight labor market.

But such reviews had a tendency to disproportionately hurt African-Americans and Latinos, according to many labor advocates. Not to mention the fact that lots of other job seekers from all groups who’ve faced unemployment, or underemployment, have faced money woes and may have had their credit histories impacted as a result.

Steps by the federal government and states to crack down on the practice have gotten everyone looking more closely at the process.

“Some of the decline in the use of credit checks may be related to measures put in place by state governments and municipalities, as well as increased attention to the issue,” said Mike Aitken, vice president of government affairs at the Society of Human Resource Management.

The organization just released its figures on such background checks and found:

More than one-half (53 percent) of respondents to a SHRM survey said they don’t use credit background checks in hiring. That’s an increase from 2010, when 40 percent of organizations reported not using credit checks, and from 2004, when 39 percent did not.

“Employers – through their HR professionals – are continually evaluating practices and programs. And this is no different,” Aitken said.

“We think employers are looking more closely at these practices,” he continued. “They want to ensure that any screening or evaluation tool used during the hiring process is related to the duties of specific positions and consistent with federal law prohibiting job discrimination.”

Amen to that.

I’m going to do my best not to be too pushy in this post. I don’t want to come off as a domineering white gal and scare you off.

Turns out white women and black men experience more of a blacklash when they exhibit dominant behavior than black women and white males.

Seriously! New research from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, found this the be the case: (more…)

Career experts often advise job seekers to consider whether they fit into a company’s culture before they spend too much time trying to get hired.

But what if you think you fit the culture but the employer doesn’t?

Let’s say a hiring manager doesn’t think you have the right heritage, mores, values, or habits of the company. I took those words right out of the dictionary definition of culture. That’s what we’re talking about after all; how you fit into a company’s mini society.

Take Bass Pro Shops for example. The fishing and hunting retailer with stores that include an endless stream of dead animals and a log-cabin feel definitely has it’s own aura, and they make no bones about it. They even sell a t-shirt with the name “Redneck Fishfinder” emblazoned on the front. Here’s the definition of redneck:

a working-class white person, esp. a politically reactionary one from a rural area

What if you’re not a redneck? Can an employer refuse to hire you? The government is accusing the company of just that. (more…)

The boards of Corporate America are getting even whiter and even more male these days.

According to a new study the numbers of minorities and women on boards at Fortune 500 companies are shrinking, SHRINKING!

Collectively, women and minorities lost ground in America’s corporate boardrooms between 2004 and 2010, according to Missing Pieces: Women and Minorities on Fortune 500 Boards―2010 Alliance for Board Diversity Census.

It’s sad news for women, minorities, corporations, and society at large because so many studies have shown diversity on corporate boards helps a business’ bottom line and also helps give a boost to integrity on the job. The decline in diversity isn’t totally unexpected, but why is this a persistent problem? Is it the fault of a discriminatory system that keeps women and minorities down, or are women and minorities not stepping up to the plate? (more…)

There’s a growing backlash against credit history background checks in the hiring process.

At the head of the movement is Jacqueline Berrien, the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. According to labor experts I’ve been talking to in the months since she got the top post at the government agency in April, she doesn’t much like credit checks and has the practice in her crosshairs.

Yesterday, at a hearing to discuss the practice, she made her opinion pretty clear:

“High unemployment has forced an increasing number of people to enter or re-enter the job market. As a result, an ever increasing number of job applicants and workers are being exposed to employment screening tools, such as credit checks, that could unfairly exclude them from job opportunities.”

While checking an applicant’s financial history was standard practice when it came to jobs in banking, for example, hiring managers in many industries now see credit checks as a way to find out more about the people they are considering hiring. The issue for many worker advocates is the practice hits minorities and the jobless more than others and that’s not fair. (more…)

You might not be interested in reading any obits today on a really old senator who probably should have retired from Congress long ago.

But in this era of Twitter, Facebook and extreme self promotion, all of us, including every so-called social media and personal branding guru out there, might want to spend some time today reading about how Robert Byrd, the longest-serving member of Congress who died today at age 92, went from Ku Klux Klan member to liberal hero.

Byrd also voted against the Civil Rights Act, but he went on to become a champion of the rights of all Americans.

So many of you have asked me how to explain being fired from a job, or getting a hiring manager to see beyond a past public transgression, or criminal record. And parents are often wondering if something their kids say on Facebook will come back to haunt them when they go out in the real world.

All these things can make your career life harder, no question about it.

A newly released survey by OfficeTeam found that one in five job candidates gets dropped after references are checked.

But how did someone like Byrd overcome such a checkered past? Was he a shrewd image revamper or did he just not let his past keep him down? (more…)

In Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger is just a mild-mannered construction worker from 2084. Or is he?

Turns out, he’s a secret agent, who ends up fighting against the forces of corruption who use a technological arsenal to track him, erase his memories, and generally make his life miserable.

I sort of get a Total Recall déjà vu moment when I hear some of the wacky stuff coming out of our nation’s leaders lately.

There’s a furor in this country over the use of illegal immigrants in low-paying jobs. And as a result, politicians want you legal, American workers in all industries and jobs to suffer for it. (more…)

When a new kid shows up at a playground do you know what happens? The kid typically gets the shaft.

Why? Because kids, and adults, don’t cotton to strangers right away. It takes time.

This concept appears to be a surprise to the editors of the Wall Street Journal’s Business Insight supplement put out today — “Why Diversity Can Backfire on Company Boards”

Turns out the entrenched white guys in Corporate America have a tough time when a woman walks into their boardroom. (more…)

As more and more news comes out about Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, TX, it appears there was more than one manager and colleague who thought Hasan was a little bit off.

This from an Associated Press article:

Doctors and staff overseeing Hasan’s training viewed him at times as belligerent, defensive and argumentative in his frequent discussions of his Muslim faith, a military official familiar with several group discussions about Hasan said.

(more…)

The man in the photo below is of Soukias Bodukoglu. He was my grandfather and he emigrated from Istanbul to New York in the early 1960s.

My grandfather’s boss at the New York menswear factory where he worked as a fabric cutter couldn’t pronounce the name “Soukias”.

So one day the boss told my grandfather: “Your name is now Joe.” (more…)