Ontario's job posting law: what it requires of your hiring software

According to the Employment Standards Act guide, the rules apply to employers with 25 or more employees on the day the posting is published. People are counted, not full-time equivalents: each part-time or casual employee counts as one, and all Ontario locations are added together.

They cover external postings advertised to the public for a specific position. A general campaign such as "we are always looking for talent", a posting open only to current employees, or a job located entirely outside Ontario is not included.

The ministry's guide lists these obligations:

• astate the expected pay or a pay range, with a spread of no more than $50,000 a year; the rule doesn't apply if the pay, or the top of the range, exceeds $200,000;
• bdisclose whether artificial intelligence is used to screen, assess or select applicants, even when a third party does it;
• cstate whether the posting is for an existing vacancy;
• dnot require Canadian experience, in the posting or in the application form.

Each interviewed applicant must be told, within 45 days of their last interview, whether a hiring decision has been made. The guide accepts a message in person, in writing or by technology, or a status update posted on a portal.

The employer keeps a copy of every posting, every revised version and the information given to interviewed applicants for 3 years.

Job posting platforms have their own duties too: a conspicuous way to report a fraudulent posting, and a posted written policy on how such postings are handled.

According to the Office québécois de la langue française, employers must publish their job offers in French. An offer may also run in another language, provided the French version is published at the same time, through similar means, to a comparable audience.

If the employer requires knowledge of a language other than French, the reasons for that requirement must appear in the offer itself.

This is how we built these rules into Signum, our hiring platform. These are engineering choices, to validate with your legal advisor:

• aCheck the posting while it's being written and explain each problem, rather than a bare refusal at publish time.
• bBlock publishing an Ontario posting with no pay, a range that's too wide, no vacancy statement, or a Canadian experience requirement.
• cAdd the AI disclosure automatically when the software ranks applicants.
• dRequire a French version for a Quebec posting written in another language, and the reason for any language requirement.
• eLog interviews, compute the 45-day deadline and keep a copy of every update sent.
• fOffer a records export, and a "Report this job" button on every posting.