Employment Books

This book is a "must-read" for anyone who needs to make a resume. The before and after examples are SO helpful. I have used my completed resume several times and each time, the interviewers have been impressed! This book is very easy to read and understand and will help to improve ANY resume! I highly recommend it!

This book and the accompanying cd provide the basis for completing a successful fire department promotion oral assessment board. As a career fire officer hopeful, this manual has given me the insight I have been after to give me an edge on the competition. Mr. Mittendorf goes beyond the known interview guidelines into fine points that he as a fire officer looked for when he was on the evaluation side of the table. I highly recommend this manual to any fire officer hopeful.

This is the Fourth Edition of an exceptionally valuable book which was first published in 1991. Weiss has updated his material to accommodate new laws, regulations, and court decisions which are directly relevant to discrimination and EEOC guidelines, employee verification and security, technology issues, sexual harassment, negligent hiring practices, management of people with disabilities, affirmative action, discipline and termination policies and procedures, defamation, violations of privacy, the Family and Medical Leave Act, evaluations and promotions, sex and age discrimination, and labor law.

As is also true of previous editions, the subtitle correctly indicates that Weiss explains "safe hiring, managing & firing practices to keep you & your company out of court." He organizes the material as follows:

Part I Safe Hiring Practices [re recruiting, interviewing, and employment decisions]

Part II Safe Management Practices [re evaluations and promotions, preventing sex discrimination and sexual harassment on the job, employee action laws and labor rights]

Part III Safe Firing Practices [re discipline and firing practices, public policy, management of older employees]

With Weiss's guidance, it is possible for the decision-makers in any company to complete what amounts to a comprehensive "audit" of any and all areas in which that company could be vulnerable to litigation. Of at least equal importance, the same "audit" will help the company to determine precisely what its obligations are as an employer as well as what the legal rights of each employees are.

Perhaps it would be helpful to those who read this commentary if I now provide a brief excerpt which is representative of the quality of Weiss?s counsel throughout the entire book. I have deliberately selected an especially troublesome area, one which has been the focal point of countless lawsuits: Employee Performance Evaluation. According to Weiss: ?Subjective rating systems in themselves are not illegal. The EEOC and the courts recognize subjective job standards such as communication and leadership skills) and that the words [in italics] good, satisfactory, poor, and unsatisfactory [end italics] carry within them subjective elements. So where do they draw the line?

1. When standards are unequally applied or do not exist at all; and

2. When someone shows that the standards or their absence produces disparate treatment in promotion and compensation policies, as for example:

? When sex stereotyping tainted the process by which a woman was denied a partnership in a [major] accounting firm or

? When subjective decision making torpedoed promotion policies that have disparate impact on minorities.

EEOC and court rulings encourage objective performance appraisals, but they discourage using them as a subterfuge for discrimination.?

Weiss devotes all of Chapter 6 to explaining HOW to formulate policies and procedures so that all evaluations and promotions are ?safe.? That is, they are in full compliance with all applicable regulatory laws, rules, and regulations.

Throughout this brilliant book, as Weiss rigorously and thoroughly examines hiring, managing, and firing practices which are both ethical and legal, he explains What You Can Do and What You Cannot Do. However, with all due respect to Weiss, qualified legal counsel should be consulted to ensure that all of a company's policies and procedures are "fair, square & legal." One of the many value-added benefits of this updated edition is that Weiss identifies a number of ?Cases? at the end of each chapter to which his readers and their legal counsel are referred. There are 17 cited at the end of Chapter 6.

An organization?s policies and procedures concerning employment law must then be carefully explained to all of its employees as well as contained within an employee manual. If at all possible, the same policies and procedures should be readily available online. Of course, they must be rigorously and consistently enforced. Even so, there may yet be frivolous lawsuits but at least the company has done everything possible to prevent them and is thus much better prepared to obtain a favorable decision in a court of law if and when involved in litigation.

For small-to-midsize companies competing in a litigious society, this book is more than a "must read": it is an absolutely essential source of information to which decision-makers (especially owners) of such companies should constantly refer. The term "frivolous lawsuit" is really a misnomer. Check a reputable dictionary of synonyms and you will learn that the word frivolous connotes "trivial, trifling, piddling, unimportant, insignificant, inconsiderable, petty, and paltry." On the contrary, an adverse decision resulting from a so-called frivolous lawsuit can destroy a company which has limited resources...or at least create truly serious problems for it, most of which are preventable.

The subtitle of Weiss's book correctly indicates that he explains "safe hiring, managing & firing practices to keep you & your company out of court." He organizes the material as follows:

Part I Safe Hiring Practices [re recruiting, interviewing, and employment decisions]

Part II Safe Management Practices [re evaluations and promotions, preventing sex discrimination and sexual harassment on the job, employee action laws and labor rights]

Part III Safe Firing Practices [re discipline and firing practices, public policy, management of older employees]

With Weiss's guidance, it is possible for the decision-makers in any company to complete what amounts to a comprehensive "audit" of any and all areas in which that company could be vulnerable to litigation. Of at least equal importance, the same "audit" will help the company to determine precisely what its obligations are as an employer as well as what the legal rights of its employees are.

Ultimately, with all due respect to Weiss, qualified legal counsel should be consulted to ensure that all of a company's policies and procedures are "fair, square & legal." They must then be explained to all employees. Finally, they must be rigorously and consistently enforced. Even so, there may yet be frivolous lawsuits but at least the company has done everything possible to prevent them and is thus much better prepared to obtain a favorable decision in a court of law.

Arvey and Faley provide a comprehensive guide to the dos and don'ts of personnel selection. In an era of endless litigation, managers can protect their corporations from large punitive judgements if they arm themselves with the knowledge of fair hiring practices. This is a must-have book for all HR executives.

Two years ago, many of us were at a conference in San Francisco that led to the new book, "Families at Work: Expanding the Bounds," edited by Naomi Gerstel, Dan Clawson, and Robert Zussman (Vanderbilt Press, 2002,[$$$]+shipping from amazon.com). I thought the conference was great, but the book is even better. Whether due to the judicious selection of chapters, or superb editing, the book serves as a great reader on work/family research, and particularly for qualitative research (I know,
some of the quant folks hit the ceiling when an 'N' of 36 pops up, but I find much of it very insightful). Many of the chapters are on topics where little is otherwise known -- including the division of labor among lesbigay couples, the meanings of reciprocity among single moms, how moms think about the needs of teenagers, how work & family have fit into the lives of political activists, and how being a 'nerd' translates into masculinity in
high-tech jobs. Two of the papers have already become classics of some sort -- a chapter from Francine Deutsch's "Halving It All" on blue-collar couples, and a chapter by Gerstel and Clawson on unions and w/f. A majority of the chapters have admittedly been published elsewhere already, but it would be very difficult to put all of the articles together yourself for, say, a course, and the book would work very well at the senior undergrad or grad level. Great work & congrats to the editors!

This is a marvelous book describing the problems with the existing family policy in the United States and looking to the experience of other countries for suggestions as to how to fix them. It is written beautifully -- both clearly and intelligently -- and is a joy to read both for someone who is new to the subject area and someone who already has a good understanding but is eager to assess possibilities for future developments. I use this book as the central text in an advanced seminar for graduate students in public policy. It would be equally appropriate for undergraduates and for the interested layperson. The authors are leading authorities in the field and this book reflects their accumulated wisdom.

An excellant book to help middle school students to appreciate and understand why they need to have such a broad education for the different careers they may choose in the future!

Federal Disability Law in a Nutshell is a well written work explaining some of the finer points of disability law. I am not certain I would suggest paying full price for it now, as much of the information provided is available for [...]

The Federal Resume Guidebook is a fantastic source for anyone interested in employment or job change with the Federal government. It's pretty easy to use and taught me a lot about how to change my 171 and what was missing in my resume. I got the job!