Internet hiring complicates bias rule

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Thousands of federal government contractors are struggling to comply with a new Labor Department rule that establishes record-keeping requirements for online job applicants and will help the government enforce nondiscrimination laws.

The rule for the first time defines "Internet applicants" from whom federal contractors must solicit demographic information and sets requirements for the records that businesses must maintain about hiring conducted via the Internet and related technologies, including resume databases and job banks.

"What we're hearing is that it's intricate, and in some cases difficult [to comply], but it was necessary to get us out of the situation we were in," said Charles E. James Sr., director of the Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, which finalized the rule Feb. 6 and gave contractors 90 days to at least demonstrate an effort to comply.

The requirements provide the office with data used to enforce nondiscrimination laws by clarifying what information contractors need to collect from Internet applicants.

Before the rule took effect, contractors had to keep records of resumes at which they looked from online databases in the same way they did for traditional applications. That was not practical because a simple glance at a resume did not determine whether the applicant was qualified, Mr. James said.

"It was so unworkable from both sides," he said. "Too unwieldy for them to collect or for us to analyze."

Problems defining Internet applicants began in the late 1990s when online job sites revolutionized recruiting and made it possible for one person to apply quickly for hundreds of jobs or for one posting to elicit thousands of resumes, said Cristeena Naser, senior counsel at the American Bankers Association, which submitted comments before the rule was finalized.

Online job site Monster.com alone has more than 50 million resumes in its database and attracts more than 20 million job seekers per month, said a spokeswoman for the Maynard, Mass., company.

The rule affects about 100,000 "facilities," which are buildings or street addresses that the compliance office uses to track contractors, Mr. James said. Monster.com estimated that 20,000 businesses representing 27 million employees would be affected by the rule; Mr. James said he did not doubt those numbers but could not confirm them.

Under the new rule, an "Internet applicant" is defined as a person who: