Monday, November 15, 2010

EEOC Issues Informal Letter on Use of Video Resumes

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

EEOC Office of Legal Counsel staff members wrote the following letter to respond to a request for public comment from a federal agency or department. This letter is an informal discussion of the noted issue and does not constitute an official opinion of the Commission.
ADA, GINA, Title VII & ADEA: Video Resumes

September 21, 2010

Dear:
This is in response to your May 4, 2010 email inquiring about the legality, under the federal equal employment opportunity (EEO) laws, of screening job applicants based on video resumes and online professional and personal videos. Noting that your firm offers a video resume service, you observe that when presenting this technology to companies and universities, “the first question we are consistently asked is in regard to discrimination.”
As you know, the EEOC enforces the federal laws that prohibit employment discrimination by employers, employment agencies,1 and labor organizations on the bases of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information.2 Covered employers may include private and state and local government employers.3 Universities, as employers, are covered, but the EEO laws do not apply to universities’ decisions about admitting students.
The EEO laws prohibit these covered entities from recruiting and selecting new employees in a discriminatory way. The EEO laws do not expressly prohibit the use of specific technologies or methods for selecting employees, and therefore do not prohibit the use of video resumes. The key question under the EEO laws is how the selection tools are used.

Full Letter: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/foia/letters/2010/ada_gina_titlevii_video_resumes.html

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