A look at a few tips Bozeman gives its job applicants

What happens when you apply for a job with the City of Bozeman? What is the city looking for in its job candidates? What should those candidates know before going in to the hiring process?

Thankfully, the city provides a few pointers on its HR Web site — things that people interested in working for the city should keep in mind. I'll summarize a few of the relevant items here. Text in bold indicates my emphasis, not the city's.

• "It is extremely important to follow the instructions found on the Position Vacancy Announcement, the Application, the Supplement Questions and any other application materials. Incomplete, late and/or unsigned application material, including those which do not follow the instructions, will NOT be considered."
• "Equal Employment Opportunity: It is the policy of City of Bozeman that the City does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, sex, age, marital status, national origin, political ideas, or disability in employment or the provision of services. This policy does not preclude discrimination based upon bona fide occupational qualifications or other recognized exceptions under the law."
• "The Montana Human Rights Act requires the City of Bozeman to make and keep records relevant to the determinations of whether unlawful employment practices have been or are being committed. The City of Bozeman Equal Employment Opportunity Applicant Survey (attached to the application) once completed, will be separated from your Application. The survey information will be kept confidential, used only for statistical reports and other lawful purposes. The information you and others provide will be used to monitor the City's recruitment and selection practices. This form is optional: failure to complete this form will have no impact on any employment decision.

It's noteworthy that on its old background check waiver — the form has since been updated to remove the field asking for applicants' passwords and usernames — there was no indication that any of the fields on that form were optional or required.

As I have argued before on this blog, that logically implies that either the whole form is requires or the whole form is optional. You can argue with that logic if you like, but you cannot argue with the fact that the form had no instructions on it, so how could the careful job applicant, who is told repeatedly in city materials to "follow the instructions," do so? If that potential employee, lacking instructions, did not fill out that form completely, he or she was endangering his chances for a job by handing in an incomplete form, which the city helpfully tells us is not a good thing to do.

I won't comment on the Equal Employment clause. No one's accusing the City of Bozeman of discriminating against any applicant. The city is, instead, brushing up against charges of violating applicants' right to privacy under the Montana Constitution. However, access to another person's social networking site username and password could easily provide you access to information about that person's race, religion, creed, age, sex, etc. — basically all the information that equal employment says is out of bounds.

I'll grant you that access to such information doesn't mean that the hiring committee member will use that information actively in determining whether a candidate is fit for employment. But that sort of information, once read, is hard to forget. Try as a committee member might, there is no way to forget information completely. Once a hiring committee member has seen such information about a job candidate, even if he or she swears they won't use it, we have to consider that committee member tainted.

Finally, there's the Montana Human Rights Act. I don't know much about this act right now, but I'm going to be reading it soon. It seems pertinent to the discussion at hand. I'll return with more commentary about the act soon.

Related posts:

1. UPDATED City of Bozeman asks for online passwords for job applicant background checks
2. Bozeman backtracks on privacy matters
3. Rumors about Bozeman’s evil policy still bouncing around the Web
4. Details of Bozeman’s contract with hiring practice investigator
5. Twitter did it’s job for Bozeman today