So this week, I’ll be speaking at our firm’s semi-annual Labor & Employment Law seminar.  Amazingly, we have reached capacity for this event and are now taking names for a waiting list! Many thanks to all who have signed up.  It should be a lot of fun.

Frequent blog contributor (and, well, a colleague) Chris Engler and I will be talking about the nuts and bolts of the hiring process.  Hiring is, after all, the engine that runs companies.  And making good hiring decisions can yield a ton of benefits in the long run.  Moreover, hiring good employees can help avoid lawsuits from arising too.

So what are we going to talk about? Well, we’re going to look at some of the new laws on hiring.  “Ban the Box” is the latest law to arise — limiting the ability of employers to ask about criminal histories on job applications.  Limits on the use of credit reports is another relatively recent law in the last few years.

After I put together the presentation, though, I came across a really interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about how some companies are using quirky interviews in their hiring process.    In doing so, the companies are striving for “culture fit”.

At Zappos, an online retailer famed for its offbeat office culture and corporate values, veteran employees size up candidates’ ability to blend in—and have veto power over those who miss the mark. The culture experts ask candidates questions that seemingly have little to do with the job, such as “If you were to write your biography, what would the title be?”

Rick Jordan, who leads talent acquisition for the nearly 1,500-person company, says longtime employees sometimes have a “gut feeling” about who is likely to succeed. About 1 in 8 don’t make the cut, he notes. “People who are true fits to the culture and believe what we believe—they’ll do anything for the business.”

But as the article notes, “culture-fit interviews raise concerns among employment experts, who warn that such screenings may be rife with potential for bias. Though these screenings haven’t been at the center of a major employment lawsuit, legal experts are concerned that they could put companies at risk.”

Indeed, there’s already a backlash against such interviews. Facebook, the article notes, “discourages its managers from using culture fit as a criteria in hiring, and calls the term ‘a bias trap,’ according to a spokeswoman.”

Where to from here? Well, employers should continually look at their hiring processes to ensure that the message of fair, non-discriminatory hiring is getting across to those who are making the decisions.

We’ll discuss this and more at the upcoming seminar. If you’re coming, please feel free to introduce yourself to me (during a break!).  See you then.

(P.S. Many thanks to Jon Hyman who alerted me to the hilarious video of President Obama’s “job interview” with Stephen Colbert. Worth a watch.)