The Online Job Application—Equal Chance or Digital Discrimination?
Back in the day, when you wanted to get a job, you had to "pound the pavement" to find businesses that would accept your application. In those Jim Crow days, Blacks were told that "colored" was not hired at white owned companies. Even after anti-discrimation laws were passed that prohibited job discrimination because of race, color, religion or national origin; employers turned Blacks away declaring that there were no job openings or allowing Blacks to fill out applications then throwing them away after the door closed.With the revolution in computer technology, employers can now create pools of applicants through online job applications and/or resume' uploads. Practically all of the major corporations require online applications and even some smaller local companies are headed in the online direction. From a positive standpoint, a jobseeker can sit at home in front of the computer and access dozens, even hundreds of job sites. This makes for saving time and money and reduces missed opportunities.
However, this online technology has a hidden feature that has not been highlighted. The potential for the re-emergence of job discrimination. An employer could easily practice bias by "screening" the applications according to race, gender, age, or ethnic origin—all of the markers outlawed by civil rights legislation and court decisions. For instance, Blacks tend to live in residential areas with certain zip codes, the computer program can quickly separate and archive those applications and then after 6 months or a year, simply "delete" them from the file. The webmaster may instruct the computer to set an "age threshold" so that any applicant who is above or below the threshold is automatically eliminated.
The computer can even build an online applicant profile. If the company wants to hire white males between the ages of 21-30 it only needs to set the computer to look for the appropriate zip code, gender, and age. If the company wants Black females of a certain age and with caregiver experience, it need only set the parameters.
I am not aware of any federal or state law that covers online job discrimination and there should definitely be dialogue around this issue. Further, someone needs to look into the practice of job applicants being contacted by online colleges and universities for degree opportunities and the like. This is unsolicited and can be harassing with repeated annoying telephone calls. The Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission should be making rulings prohibiting this invasion of privacy.
