Job Application Website

[arj5318]

Jurisdiction

Indiana

Hi, I am currently building a website for my city that will help local high schoolers find jobs with local businesses. The plan is to have a function where the teens can apply for these jobs on the website. I am wondering what kind of legal boundaries there would be with this website and what steps I would have to take to make sure all of these issues are in check, especially regarding the collection of data from teens such as their name, address, and potentially social security number. What would I have to do to make this website up to code and allow this to happen?

 

[hrforme]

Not really a legal answer but more of an HR professional answer...

there is no reason a job application should ask for a SSN. The propective employer will only need this to do a background check once an interview has happened and around job offer time and then at actual hire. So I do not suggest that you collect that piece of information (or date of birth other that to ask if they are over x age).

Who are you going to allow to access the site? Are you going to register and require passwords from users? Are you going to vet them before allowing access? Some will depend on that.

I am curious as to why be a middle man? Why not just make a job posting board for businesses and have the teens contact the businesses directly (some of whom might already have their own applicant tracking system in place)? Or allow that as an option. Or do you think that the business owners want to be anonymous?

The reason I ask is we have an inter-agency job board and it is a pain to have it receive resumes AND to have our own ATS. It's good for those agencies/employers that don't have an ATS, but bad for those that do.

eta: I'd also seek local legal counsel to make sure your privacy and information authorizations work for your locality.

 

[arj5318]

Thank you, we were on the fence about the social security number because on a lot of applications for teen jobs in our area, the social security number was included, but it didn't seem like you would need it at that stage in the game, so we will cut that out.

As for the structure of the website, we have it made so that the businesses make an account, and when the account is verified by us, they are able to start posting job ads. The ads will include all the information about the job including pay, description, location, and then a customizable online application so that that they can make the applications include the questions they would like. The high schoolers will not have to make an account, the will be sorting through a page that has all the names of the businesses and they will be able to click on them and apply if they like. Only if they apply would we be collecting information from the high schoolers. While the job posting board is an option and was considered, we feel like it would not be as useful to the businesses and the teens and would exclude businesses that do not have their own apply online feature on their website. While we will definitely have this as an option for businesses that do have that ability on their own website, we still need to cover all the bases legally for those that can't, unless we cut out the applying online feature entirely.

Thank you