U.S. Bank tests new ways to fight bias against the long-term unemployed
Source: strib
After a health insurance company laid him off in 2012, John Columbus spent the next 20 months answering as many questions about gaps in his résumé as about his years of employment.
Then a friend steered him to U.S. Bank, which was piloting a White House initiative for hiring the long-term unemployed. “There are some companies that ask you for any involuntary termination,” Columbus said. “Those companies never call back. U.S. Bank looked at me as a whole person with 30 years of experience.”
If Columbus, a 53-year-old New Hope resident, embodies the woes of Americans out of work for more than six months, the Obama administration hopes a new hiring drill at Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank helps the nation address an ugly legacy of the Great Recession.
Some recent research shows that businesses would rather hire people with no experience than experienced workers who have been out of work for a long time. Using recommendations from a handbook drafted by Deloitte Consulting and the Rockefeller Foundation, Minnesota’s fifth largest public corporation is searching for ways to give a fairer shake to those job seekers. The handbook “increases knowledge of conscious or unconscious bias” against the unemployed, explained U.S. Bank human resources chief Jennie Carlson.
Read more: http://www.startribune.com/business/281017312.html
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