Harpe, an industrial psychologist and senior consultant at the Peopleclick® Research Institute, is the author of Peopleclick's e-book, Using Contact Management in Compliance with Federal Regulations.

Contact management systems typically:

• Collect information—Capture contact data and information about job interests and experience, etc.
• Maintain a diary—Record a complete history of interactions with each contact.
• Permit pooling—Allow you to categorize contacts in various ways.
• Support campaigns—Facilitate reaching out to contacts in a structured, scheduled manner.
• Offer alerts and notifications—Let you set reminders for yourself and others.
• Perform administrative tasks—Permit you to set configuration, access, etc.

The Legal Challenge

The tricky part of contact management is that there's a thin line between "contact" management and "applicant" management. "Contacts" don't fall under federal recordkeeping rules, while "applicants" do.

So when does a contact become an applicant? (And thus require that you solicit race and gender information and maintain records.)

In general, says Harpe, if you use contact management as a tool, similar to your Rolodex™ or Outlook^®, to simply maintain general information about individuals without reviewing their qualifications for the purpose of filling a position, federal regulations do not apply and you can avoid all of the related recordkeeping and reporting regulations.

However, if you start using your contact management system to:

• Store résumés,
• Search for individuals with certain job-related qualifications, or
• Review the resumes or other documents containing information about qualifications for a position, you start to cross the line and may be required to maintain certain records to comply with federal regulations.

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To help avoid this blurry line, it is a best practice to keep your contact management tools physically separate from your applicant tracking system (ATS), Harpe says.

Harpe finds the official definition of "Internet applicant" to be the most useful to help understand when contacts become applicants. The definition applies to all federal contractors and is enforced by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP).

To be considered an Internet applicant, individuals must meet four criteria:

1. The individual expresses interest in employment through the Internet or related data technologies.
2. The employer considers the individual for a particular position.
3. The individual meets the basic qualifications for the position.
4. The individual does not withdraw from consideration before  receiving an offer.

Criterion 1—Contacts who have expressed interest in employment

One of the most common reasons to implement a contact management tool is to help you retain information about individuals who are already employed or not currently seeking a job opportunity. These folks have not expressed interest in a position with your company and do not meet criterion 1, says Harpe.

However, another great reason to use contact management is to store information for your runner-ups, people who have applied for a position within your company and were not hired. These contacts would meet criterion 1.

(Remember that an individual must meet all four criteria to be considered an Internet applicant.)

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Criterion 2—Contacts who have been considered for a particular position

Recruiters often conduct exploratory searches in the contact management database to see how many contacts are located in a geographic region, interested in retail work, willing to relocate, etc., all without having a particular position in mind. That's OK and doesn't meet criterion 2.

The line gets a little blurry if you start searching your contacts to find potential jobseekers for a pipeline requisition, such as chemists or retail managers in general. Often, pipeline requisitions are used to store information about jobseekers with specific qualifications that are hard to find or to store jobseekers for positions that are constantly open. If you do not have a particular position in mind, you do not meet criterion 2.

If you search contacts using qualifications required for a specific current or future opening (e.g., a doctoral degree or chemistry of clinical background), these contacts would meet criterion 2. Also, if you start opening resumes, if you store these in the contact management database, and review qualifications to fill a particular position, these contacts would meet criterion 2.

In tomorrow's Advisor, we'll check out criteria 3 and 4, and we'll take a look at a unique system for training your managers and supervisors in hiring and other critical skills.

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