San Francisco Hiring Compliance: 7 Questions Before Day One

What Can You Say and Ask About Pay?

California requires employers with 15 or more employees to include the pay scale for a position in a job posting. State law also generally prohibits employers from seeking an applicant's salary history or relying on it to determine whether to offer employment or what salary to offer.

San Francisco goes further through its Parity in Pay Ordinance. It applies to entities required to register to do business in the city and prohibits them from considering an applicant's current or past salary when deciding whether to hire the applicant or what salary to offer. Employers also generally may not ask applicants about salary history or disclose a current or former employee's salary history without authorization.

One potential source of confusion is a recent repeal. San Francisco repealed a separate salary-history requirement applicable to City contractors effective January 1, 2026. The broader Parity in Pay Ordinance remains in effect.

Can AI Decide Who Gets the Interview?

Artificial intelligence may help make that decision, but California’s anti-discrimination rules follow the technology into the hiring process.

California regulations governing automated decision systems took effect October 1, 2025. They clarify that using an automated system or selection criteria that discriminates against an applicant based on a characteristic protected by California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act can violate the law. The regulations can reach tools used for resume screening, applicant ranking and other employment decisions. Covered employers also must retain specified employment records, including automated-decision-system data, for at least four years.

The practical question is not simply whether an employer uses AI. Employers should understand where automated tools influence hiring decisions, what information they consider and what happens to applicants as a result.

Can You Look at an Applicant's Social Media?

California law generally prohibits employers from requiring applicants to disclose usernames or passwords for personal social media, access personal accounts in the employer’s presence or disclose personal social-media content.

Publicly available information presents a different challenge.

An employer searching an applicant’s public online presence may discover political activity, religious beliefs, disability information, family information or other characteristics that should not influence an employment decision. California law also restricts employer interference with political activity, adding another reason to separate what an employer can find from what it can appropriately use.

The fact that an employer can see something on an applicant’s public social media profile does not necessarily mean the employer should consider it.

When Can You Run the Background Check?

This is where San Francisco adds another layer. The Fair Chance Ordinance generally prohibits covered employers from asking about criminal history on an employment application and requires them to wait until after a conditional offer before asking about or investigating criminal history.

Amendments effective August 10, 2026, added four categories of out-of-state criminal history that employers may not treat as directly related to the position: matters involving abortion-related healthcare, gender-affirming care, drag performances and spontaneous abortion. The amendments also changed the individualized-assessment process, including a seven-day response period and new requirements to acknowledge information supplied by an applicant, reconsider the decision and, in certain circumstances, withdraw the proposed adverse action.

OLSE has since quietly revised its required Fair Chance notice, without announcing the revision. The updated notice reflects the new final-action timeline and the additional categories, but describes coverage more broadly than the ordinance itself, referring to employers with five or more employees without expressly stating the ordinance's geographic limitation, which remains.

An employer taking final adverse action must notify the applicant within 30 days after receiving the response or, if there is no response, within 30 days after the prospective adverse-action notice.