In Pennsylvania, as in most states, an employee without a contract for a specific term of employment is deemed an at-will employee. Subject to certain exceptions (e.g., discrimination, violations of public policy), an at-will employee can be terminated for any reason or no reason at all. How hard is it…
Articles Posted in Hiring & Firing
10 of most common interview questions…and 5 of the crazaziest!
Recently, Glassdoor.com poured through thousands of interview questions and posted 50 that come up more often than not. Here are the Top 10: 1. What are your strengths? 2. What are your weaknesses? 3. Why are you interested in working for [insert company name here]? 4. Where do you see…
3 tips to guide a social-media check on your potential new hire
According to this recent SHRM survey, only 18% of companies have used social media to screen job candidates. Most cite the legal risks of screening candidates as the reason for not implementing a social-media background check. While a social-media background check may not be useful in certain instances, I can…
Top 5 Reasons Employers Give Their Employees the Boot
I’m in Las Vegas. So, for today, Jane Smith has control of the The Employer handbook. Jane is a freelance writer and blogger. She writes about free background checks for Backgroundcheck.org. After the jump, check out her top 5 reasons employers give employees the boot. Questions and comments can be…
POLL: Would you fire this employee for her Facebook comments?
I read this on ZDnet yesterday: Administrative Law Judge Ellen Bass has ruled Jennifer O’Brien, a first-grade teacher at School 21 in Paterson, New Jersey, should lose her tenured job, because of a Facebook comment she made about her students. O’Brien has been on administrative leave since March, which is…
This employee used a friggin’ marching band to quit his job!!!
This has been an intense week here at The Employer Handbook. What, with Monday’s post on taking the “sex” out of sexual harassment, followed up on Tuesday with the 15 craziest excuses employees have for missing work. You guys seemed to like that one a lot. Then there was the post…
Remember this? The most unique way to quit your job.
I get 15 16 minutes of fame. Earlier this week, one of my readers forwarded an email to me reminding me about the young woman above who, last year, in a series of 34 pictures, told her employer to take her job and shove it. Nice! Although I’m not…
Welcome to the Employment Law Blog Carnival: Jukebox edition!
The Employment Law Blog Carnival has finally rolled into town. What is a blog carnival? It is a collection of links on a particular topic — here, employment law — that bloggers have submitted to me, which I then arrange around a particular theme. For this edition of the Carnival,…
Pornographers need employment lawyers too, you know.
Welcome everyone to the first last edition of T&A Thursday, where I update you on all that’s going on in the world of porn and employment law. After the jump, it’s all the news that’s barely fit to print. (At least it’s safe for work)… * * * Hit the…
Fact or Fiction: WARN applies to parents and affiliates
Welcome back to “Fact or Fiction” a/k/a “Quick Answers to Quick Questions” a/k/a QATQQ f/k/a “I don’t feel like writing a long blog post”. As you know, if you read yesterday’s post, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), a federal law, protects workers by requiring most employers with…