Job Applicants

The Department of Homeland Security patrols the nation's borders, issues passports and deports illegal immigrants. But the linchpin of future of immigration enforcement is stored in a secure facility in Woodlawn, where computer servers hold the digital Social Security records of hundreds of millions of Americans. Since 1996, a growing number of employers have logged on to a password-protected Web site and queried those records to see whether job applicants are here legally. The screening system, called Basic Pilot, is run by the Department of Homeland Security.

Global Security Inc., the latest incarnation of a 13-year-old scheme in which job applicants are enticed to work without wages and pay up to $12,000 in fees, has gone the way of its predecessors, closing its doors in the wake of scrutiny by news media, private lawsuits and government investigators."

NUMBERS crunchers from Towson (don't call us "State") University came to town a week ago to paint a broad-brush picture of Carroll County's economy, and of its future. A macroeconomic tour d'horizon, academics would call it.As is usual with economists' expositions, the presentation by Michael Funk of the university's Regional Economic Studies Institute raised more questions than it answered. Not to disparage the work of RESI, which has produced valuable analyses and forecasts of Maryland and local economies.

THE MARYLAND State Board of Education's recent bold decision to require students to pass a series of tough tests before receiving a high school diploma should be applauded and supported by every Marylander.We must expect of high school students what will be expected of them after they graduate. And we must enable our high schools to see that students meet these vital expections.A high-tech worldToday's high school students will soon find themselves in a world awash in technological innovation, a world caught up in intense global competition for workers and markets.

Baltimore Goodwill Industries and the city Department of Social Services have teamed up to open a one-stop job center to help welfare recipients move into paying jobs.In addition to having a wide variety of programs to assist job hunters, the new center houses a Social Services office that qualifies job applicants for the services, said Fred de Gregorio, a vice president of Goodwill."It keeps people from running all over town. They can do everything at one site," de Gregorio said of the center, which was officially opened by Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke in a ceremony Friday.

Anthony Jones was losing his janitor's job because a city contract was ending when a friend told him about an unorthodox group of volunteers that works out of a former church rectory in Remington. They help people find and keep entry-level jobs for free.Mr. Jones jumped at the news and soon found himself at Genesis Jobs Inc., a 10-year-old nonprofit company that holds group orientations on what employers expect and conducts private counseling sessions with job-seekers. Within a month, he had four job offers and became a laborer for a satisfied Struever Bros.

WASHINGTON -- Stepping up its assault on illegal immigration, the Clinton administration announced yesterday a nationwide expansion of a pilot program in California that requires participating employers to verify the legal status of job seekers.Specifically, the Immigration and Naturalization Service reached agreement with the nation's four largest meat-packing companies, representing 80 percent of the industry's 70,000 employees, to use a computerized data system at 41 plants in 12 Western and Midwestern states to determine if job applicants are legal workers.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration is pressing ahead with a plan to transform background investigations of many government employees into a profit-making business run by a newly created private company, despite protests from some members of Congress, Cabinet officials, and investigators worried about confidentiality and security lapses.Under the plan, which has been in the works for a year and a half and will take effect at the end of this week, about 40 percent of security and other background checks on government employees and job applicants will be taken over by an employee-owned, profit-seeking company.

Jacqueline Wilson was a single mother living on welfare with a 4-year-old daughter in East Baltimore when opportunity arrived, and then left her behind in a cloud of diesel fumes.The 22-year-old was turned down for a job as a bus driver with the Mass Transit Administration solely because, at 5 feet 5 1/2 inches tall and 186 pounds, she was judged 40 pounds overweight.That was 1979. Fifteen years later, the state is on the verge of making amends. She and two other women are about to receive more than $36,000 in damages for being refused jobs driving buses for the MTA on the basis of obesity.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration wants to limit mental health questions in federal employee background checks, saying the current system violates the privacy rights of job applicants.The policy, unveiled yesterday by Tipper Gore, the wife of Vice President Gore, would focus psychiatric inquiries solely on an applicant's recent past, eliminate reporting about marriage counseling and other short-term therapy and allow mental health questions only as they relate to job performance."I personally do not believe people who receive mental health treatment, in the broadest general sense, represent any more of a security risk than somebody that receives treatment from a cardiologist or an oncologist or an allergist," Mrs. Gore said in a speech at the National Press Club.

We know employers and recruiters use social networking sites to vet job candidates and even see what current employees are up to. Now we have a better insight into how they're using that information, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management. Since 2006, there has been a 17 percent increase in human resources executives who use sites such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn as recruiting, resume verification and candidate screening tools at least occasionally, according to the survey of nearly 600 HR professionals.

The Department of Homeland Security patrols the nation's borders, issues passports and deports illegal immigrants. But the linchpin of future of immigration enforcement is stored in a secure facility in Woodlawn, where computer servers hold the digital Social Security records of hundreds of millions of Americans. Since 1996, a growing number of employers have logged on to a password-protected Web site and queried those records to see whether job applicants are here legally. The screening system, called Basic Pilot, is run by the Department of Homeland Security.

Spotless resume, check. Cover letter, check. References, check. But these days, more job candidates are adding something extra to their applications to stand out from the crowd: Video clips. Although video resumes have been around for years, the tool is gaining wider acceptance because of the popularity of YouTube and other video-sharing sites. Advances in broadband technology and the easy use and accessibility of digital and Web cameras also are contributing to a surge in video resume production, especially among younger job candidates who perfected their Internet skills on social networking sites while growing up. Few employers are routinely asking for video resumes and, some job placement consultants argue that recruiters will never have enough time to sift through many of them.

Tip of the week: Attract, retain employees The cost of losing employees is high. It pays employers to take the time and effort to recruit, select and reward talented employees. Here are some basics: Clearly explain the job and your expectations to job applicants. Job seekers want honesty and a thorough understanding of the job and the salary potential. Don't ignore unacceptable or problem job behaviors from new employees. Employees need immediate and clear feedback to correct behavior and improve performance.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A suicide car bomb tore through a crowd of Iraqis applying for police work yesterday in the volatile city of Baqouba, killing at least 68 people in the deadliest attack since the country regained sovereignty last month. The attack was part of a surge in violence that Iraq had been bracing for ahead of a three-day national conference to select an oversight council with veto power over the country's interim government. That conference, promoted as a significant step in Iraq's evolution toward democracy, begins Saturday.

How Would You Move Mount Fuji? by William Poundstone. Little, Brown. 288 pages. $22.95. This is a dead-serious book about recruiting practices and abstract reasoning -- presented as a puzzle game. Long before Microsoft became internationally notorious for asking job applicants impossible-to-answer questions, imaginative professors and some strategists of business and other enterprises were using the imponderable hypothetical question to test the minds, wills and temperaments of lesser humans.

WE TALK a lot about the gaps. The gender gap. The digital divide. The salary gap. The generation gap. Owners vs. employees. Government vs. business. Labor vs. management. Sometimes, schisms overwhelm commonalities. Sadly, I put forth another rift: the ability gap. It may be the most gaping workplace cleft of all. Today's work force is riven between those who have the basic skills needed in most 21st-century jobs and those who don't. Last year, one out of three job applicants failed pre-employment tests at workplaces that gave them.

Robert Brown has a lot of assets: He has 18 years' experience as a machine operator and a friendly, confident personality. What he hasn't had, for seven-plus years, is a decent job. Brown, 44, was thrown out of work when a local steelmaker shuttered his unit in the early 1990s. Since then, he has gone through a series of what he describes as "go-nowhere, full-time jobs, or survival-type part-time jobs." And most recently, no job. "It makes you very angry sometimes," said Brown, who lives near the Pimlico racetrack in Northwest Baltimore.

Global Security Inc., the latest incarnation of a 13-year-old scheme in which job applicants are enticed to work without wages and pay up to $12,000 in fees, has gone the way of its predecessors, closing its doors in the wake of scrutiny by news media, private lawsuits and government investigators."

NUMBERS crunchers from Towson (don't call us "State") University came to town a week ago to paint a broad-brush picture of Carroll County's economy, and of its future. A macroeconomic tour d'horizon, academics would call it.As is usual with economists' expositions, the presentation by Michael Funk of the university's Regional Economic Studies Institute raised more questions than it answered. Not to disparage the work of RESI, which has produced valuable analyses and forecasts of Maryland and local economies.