Labor & Employment Law

Traveling Applicants: Catch-22

The scenario:  an employer is conducting a search for an important position.  Part of the interview process involves flying candidates to the corporate headquarters to meet the big wigs for the final interview.  The interviews so far have gone well.  The HR staff coordinates the travel arrangements and runs into a slight hiccup:  how to ask the applicant for his date of birth so that staff can make travel arrangements without opening itself up to questions about inappropriate age inquiries.

Recently, the Transportation Security Administration implemented a rule that requires flyers to provide their date of birth and gender when making airline reservations.  This half-brained idea is supposed to allow the TSA to compare reservations with no-fly lists.

As everyone knows, asking an applicant for his/her date of birth raises suspicion, regardless of the reason.  In addition, let's not even address issues relating to privacy concerns which arise as a result of providing confidential information to the employer and then the travel agent.  Who knows who will get their hands on this information.

Too bad this rule flies in the face of other rules that employers are subjected to.  It would have been nice if the left hand spoke to the right hand.  Gee, maybe that's why my passport card  - which was touted by the government as a great idea - says it's not approved for flying.  Lovely, I got one so that I can basically be forced to use other identification 99% of the time anyway.

Full post as published by Strategic HR Lawyer on November 22, 2009 (boomark / email).