Is an employer allowed to deny a job to someone who withholds work history?

Question

My relative is currently a temporary employee at a community library. Having demonstrated good performance and fit over 6 months, she was recently encouraged to apply to an internal posting for a permanent position. Not only did she apply, but also received training in core responsibilities of the role while her application was considered.

All indications suggested she was going to get the job. Yesterday, however, she met with the library manager as well as the library administration. Turns out the manager had previously managed another library, where my relative was employed for exactly 1.5 months as a part-time shelver. Because this experience was not listed on my relative's job application, the manager accused my relative of withholding work history.

My relative decided to omit the part-time work in favor of more substantive work experience, such as eight years of work as a full-time circulation assistant at a library in another state. The manager considered the omission deceitful, since it disobeyed application requirements to list the four most recent places of employment and to certify the truth of all statements made.

As a result, my relative has been put under probation, and denied promotion. My relative is in her 60s and desperately needs a job. The whole situation seems so unfair, so I am hoping she has some recourse. The library is stand-alone in its jurisdiction, so the manager, the administration, and the board of trustees are the highest authorities she can appeal to. Can someone be denied employment for the aforementioned reasons?

Answer 1

Can someone be denied employment for the aforementioned reasons?

While unfortunate, and perhaps rather unfair, the answer is Yes - an employer can deny employment for not disclosing all prior jobs while certifying that you had.

It is especially frustrating to know the entire situation only became an issue because of the privy knowledge the new manager had and chose to take umbrage at.

That is frustrating. Unfortunately, it's a reminder to not omit short-term positions from your job history - because you never know how a potential employer might discover the truth.

In this case, someone who worked at the omitted job (the manager) recognized her and remembered she worked there. That sort of thing happens - in many professions, it's a very small world. I've seen this tale play out several times in my career.

Beyond an answer to my question, any advice would be appreciated. The library is stand-alone in its jurisdiction, so the new manager, the administration, and the board of trustees are the highest authorities she can appeal to (as well as the interim manager who will shortly return to his role as financial manager).

It doesn't seem that there's much to appeal here. I suppose you could try to make it a public issue, go to the local media or local town officials, indicate that a 60-year-old is being mistreated, etc. Honestly, I don't think that would help or be a good thing to do. As you indicated, the role she was seeking is being dissolved anyway.

Unfortunately, she may simply need to seek employment elsewhere, just as if this opening had never existed. It seems unlikely that she could force them to hire her if they really don't want to do so (for whatever reason).

Answer 2

Is an employer allowed to deny a job to someone who withholds work history?

Yes. No federal laws prevent an employer from not hiring for this reason. As far as I'm aware, no state has enacted legislation that will prevent an employer from denying someone who provides an (intentionally) incomplete work history.

In the US, federal discrimination laws only cover discriminatory practices based on:

• race
• color
• religion
• sex
• national origin
• ethnicity
• disability
• genetic information
• age

More detail can be found on the Q&A page for "Federal Laws Prohibiting Job Discrimination" hosted by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Answer 3

When I was reading resumes to select people to interview for programming jobs, I was looking for two things, technical skill and work habits. Any job, regardless of what field it was in, is relevant for evaluating work habits.

For example, for a new graduate, repeated summer jobs with the same employer suggested good work habits - it is very easy to decide not to hire that person next summer.

The requirement in the application for the last four jobs may have been intended, in part, for that sort of evaluation rather than for specialized skills. If applicants were allowed to drop jobs, what would stop someone from dropping a job from which they were fired for cause?

Her best approach may be to show that the only reason she omitted the job was a failure to understand that "last four jobs" was meant to include even short term jobs, that she had no problems on that job that she would have wanted to hide.

Answer 4

From my legal understanding, if the application did in fact require that the employee put their truthful and full work history on there and that employee did not comply, then technically, yes an employer is allowed to deny and even revoke a job.

Disclaimer: I am not an attorney and that statement should not be substituted as advice from one

More than likely, if the library manager went through the trouble of checking that information, then there is some sort of conflict that extends beyond the application.

FWIW, I think that is extremely unprofessional of the new manager. If she had some sort of issue with your relative than that should have been addressed better.

But I think that this conflict was inevitable and all efforts should be on seeking employment elsewhere.