Refusal To Hire Due To Back Pain

Somebody needs to wise up. When you're interviewing applicants and a big red flag pops up...like back trouble, a drug dependency, a criminal record involving theft or sex offences , stuff that makes you think the guy wouldn't be a good employee...you look them right in the eye and lie.
You never ever tell them the real reason why you're not hiring them if that refusal would be actionable under law.
Before all the yelling and screaming starts, yeah I know the hiring laws. I know them chapter and verse. I also know that we run a small, tight, very efficient operation that depends on everybody working together. Somebody that would present problems, physical or mental, will not be hired. Period.
We have neither the time or the inclination to put up with an unsuitable applicant just because some bean counter in some office says we have to.

 

Not if their application goes in the round file. That's usually the last we hear of them.
If they look like the kind of loud mouth militant that might cause us problems with a law suit or a complaint to whatever governmental agency we'll tell them that we have no current openings that fit their qualifications. The interviewer will take notes and keep a file for awhile...just in case.
The only applicant who ever gave us real pause for thought was a female who stated that "she'd prefer a female supervisor because in every job she'd had she had problems with male supervisors." Plus the fact she didn't look like she'd bathed in a month, and emitted enough serious body odor to choke a goat, . It would have probably been alright but my co-owner at the time busted up laughing and told her that she probably wouldn't fit in here and we weren't going to hire somebody whose idea of feminine hygiene probably involved going down to the shipyard once a week and getting sand blasted.
It turned into a F you contest and she stomped out, threatening to sue. We never heard from her again.