Recruit and hire without getting sued: be careful what you ask when interviewing job applicants.

• Author: Myers, Deborah J.

It's no fun replacing an employee. The downtime, negative impact on company spirit, and the expense of recruiting and hiring can make the experience unpleasant.

Employers need to add to that list the possible liability incurred by the hiring process and the difficulty in effectively recruiting and screening. Disgruntled applicants can sue for discrimination if the hiring process is handled poorly. Or if the hired applicant turns out to be a bad apple, the process must be started all over again.

It's easier to blunder into a discrimination suit than you'd think. The wrong phrase used in the help-wanted ad, a misguided comment in the interview or an improper question on the application can leave your company open to lawsuit.

The most recent Bureau of Justice statistics state that the annual median awards in employment civil rights cases were $137,000.

Think your company is immune? The same study found that annual "employment discrimination cases nearly tripled between 1990 and 1998, increasing from 8,413 filings to 23,735."

Awareness was a large contributor to the spike in discrimination cases, and also more legal protection, thanks to the addition of the Americans with Disability Act in 1990.

As an employer, you also must remember that at no other time than during the recruiting stage does an applicant have more to gain and less to lose by filing a suit. You can protect against liability and hiring mistakes by careful applicant solicitation, planned interviews, and proper documentation and follow-up.

ADVERTISE CAREFULLY

It pays to be careful even while advertising an opening. Any recruitment ad you place represents your company and its written and unwritten policies. Advertisements' location can be an issue. Displaying help-wanted posters only on a certain church's bulletin board may make it appear that you seek to hire only people of that religious persuasion. Another example could be advertising exclusively in a racially slanted publication, which may show preference to hiring that race.

"There's a general rule that your hiring practice can't have a disparate impact on a specific minority or group," said Helena Hall, an attorney specializing in employment law for Perkins Coie Attorneys in Anchorage. "That could be problematic."

Instead, advertise in venues accessible to the general population.

Although Hall doesn't see this issue much, the wording, rather than the placement of advertisements, causes problems. For example, advertising for a waitress...