WEEK 4 EOC: Employee Recruitment and Selection

In many hospitality organizations, physical attractiveness is unquestionably a factor used to select employees in such positions as front-of-the-house food servers and hotel front desk agents. What is your opinion of the advisability and legality of utilizing such a hiring factor? Reference both controllable and uncontrollable factors IE, Tattoos, personal hygiene and scars. Explain your answer.

"Most hospitality employers utilize application forms to establish a single, uniform document for use by all job candidates or groups of candidates. In addition to obtaining needed personal information, the use of a standardized application form helps show who is considered to be an applicant; a determination that is very important in complying with the federal government's record retention and reporting requirements. For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act requires covered employers to retain applications for employment and other documents pertaining to hiring for one year from the date the records were made or the last action was taken. Does that mean that an HR manager who receives, via e-mail, an unsolicited résumé from an individual seeking a job must keep that e-mail for one year? What if dozens or even hundreds of such e-mails are received weekly? Daily? Are they all really applicants?

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs broadly define applicant to include any person who has indicated an interest in being considered for hiring, promotion, or other employment opportunities. This interest might be expressed by completing an application form, in writing or orally, depending on the employer's practice. The difficult job of determining which specific contacts create a job applicant for record keeping purposes has only increased with the proliferation of e-mail, online recruitment Web sites, and corporate and personal Web pages.

Fortunately, the EEOC has issued opinions to clarify record keeping requirements for applicants using the Internet and related cyber-technologies. The EEOC's guidance limits the definition of applicant (in the context of the Internet and related technologies) to those people who have indicated an interest in a specific position that the employer has acted to fill, and who have followed the employer's standard procedures for submitting an application. For this reason, many employers require that all job applicants (including those who have prepared résumés) submit a completed job application if they want to be considered for employment. As a result, employers must retain only those completed applications." -Chapter 4: Human Resources Management in the Hospitality Industry

I believe that having tattoos and scars are important in some aspects for prospect employees being how visible the tattoos are, now the scars are different because everyone has scars literally, but as far as hygiene i believe greatly that, that can most definitely be controlled. Tattoos and scars I would categorize under uncontrolled.