Exploring How Organizations Ensure the Hiring Process is Conducted Appropriately to Avoid Legal Issues

The overall research problem of interest in this study was the need for human resource (HR) leaders and hiring managers (HMs) to conform to a wide array of complex state and federal legal requirements concerning hiring practices. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative study was two-fold: (a) to understand how HR leaders can ensure that ethically and legally acceptable hiring practices are used in their organizations and (b) to identify the perceptions of the employee selection procedures and legal defensibility of HR personnel and HMs in Northern California in order to develop timely and informed answers to the study’s research questions and to confirm or refute the guiding hypotheses. Using a series of custom questions, a population of HR practitioners and HMs in Northern California was interviewed for this phenomenological study. The selected participants had hired employees within the past 12 months or hire frequently, and included HMs, leaders and HR personnel or HR leaders that were able to explicate optimal hiring practices in mid- to large-size organizations. The findings from this study indicated valid problems and viable solutions for further exploration and resolve. While this study did not reveal any new issues apparent with the candidate selection process, it did highlight the intricacies and distinctions of the hiring process often overlooked and where a great deal of bias lies and, consequently, vast opportunities to drive positive social change