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Lab Tech Resume Gaps: What Can They Tell You?

Reader question: Several potential candidates for our lab tech position have "resume gaps"; apparently they have been unemployed for various periods of time. They blame it on layoffs and the poor economy. I personally prefer to hire a person who has been working right up to the present. But I have heard that it may now be against regulations to "discriminate" in hiring according to employment status. Is that correct? How do I differentiate between these good workers but unemployed through no fault of their own" and the "unemployed because they were poor performers"?

Expert Comments: This has been an awful recession, and there have been many stellar employees laid off. Still, employees who are laid off usually had significantly worse job performance in previous jobs than those who left their last job voluntarily. And performance in a previous position is job-related.

At the same time, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently held a hearing on employer discrimination against unemployed job seekers. But the commission lacks statutory authority regarding this issue unless it can link refusal to hire laid-off workers with protected worker classifications — race, sex and disabilities, among others.

During the hearing, the EEOC sought to create this link by saying minorities and other protected groups were disproportionately unemployed. Therefore, discriminating against the unemployed in hiring decisions also unduly impacted protected classes. Although the commission showed there might be a disparate impact, it did not show that protected classes were actually negatively affected more than others.

Bottom-line advice: A resume gap is cause to dig deeper — if you think someone has the qualifications and check references, you may have found one of the stars who lost a job through no fault of their own. Or they may have been a poor or declining performer. Don’t automatically toss resumes with gaps, but you can see it as a red flag that requires you to confirm or refute whether the gap is related to previous job-performance.

Expert comments by Richard Bales, professor of law and associate dean of faculty development at Salmon P. Chase School of Law at Northern Kentucky University in Newport, Ky. Professor Bales contributes to the Workplace Prof Blog at http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog/.

Note: The above comments are intended as general information only, and not as legal advice for any particular case. Consult professional counsel for any individual situation you face.