Maryland technical recruiting and hiring rules
Maryland's cleared market centers on Fort George G. Meade, which calls itself the home of U.S. Cyber Command and hosts the National Security Agency, the Defense Information Systems Agency and Army Cyber Command among its tenants.
Around it sit the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Aberdeen Proving Ground to the north, NIST in Gaithersburg and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. Requisitions in this market run from Secret to TS/SCI with polygraph, and the polygraph is the term that most often decides them.
Maryland regulates the posting stage more closely than most states, with a wage range requirement, a salary history ban and a ban-the-box law that all apply to private employers. The rules below are current at the time of writing, each with its source.
Hiring rules in Maryland that matter to employers
Summaries are general information current at the time of writing and are no substitute for counsel.
- Pay transparency in job postings
- Maryland's Wage Range Transparency law took effect on October 1, 2024 and applies to postings made on or after that date by essentially every employer in the state, public and private, for part-time and full-time positions. Each public or internal posting must include the minimum and maximum salary or hourly rate, a general description of benefits, and any other compensation such as overtime, differentials, commissions, bonuses or stock. It covers remote positions that seek workers based in Maryland, requires compliance records to be kept for at least three years, and carries penalties rising from a compliance order to 300 and then 600 dollars per employee or applicant for repeat violations, according to the Maryland Department of Labor.
- Salary history
- Under Labor and Employment Section 3-304.2, an employer may not seek an applicant's wage history orally, in writing, through an agent or from a current or former employer, and may not rely on wage history in screening or in setting wages. An applicant may volunteer wage history, and after an initial offer the employer may rely on it to support a higher offer, provided no unlawful pay differential results. The ban took effect on October 1, 2020.
- Fair-chance hiring
- Maryland's statewide ban-the-box law, Labor and Employment Section 3-1501, took effect on February 29, 2020 and applies to employers with 15 or more full-time employees. Those employers may not require an applicant to disclose a criminal record or criminal accusations before the first in-person interview, which includes interviews held by phone or video, according to the Department of Labor.
- Non-compete agreements
- Labor and Employment Section 3-716 makes a non-compete or conflict-of-interest provision null and void for employees earning equal to or less than 150 percent of the state minimum wage, for licensed health care workers providing direct patient care who earn 350,000 dollars or less a year, and for veterinary practitioners and technicians, except for restrictions on taking client lists or proprietary client information. For health care workers earning more than 350,000 dollars, a non-compete may not exceed one year or ten miles from the primary place of employment.
- At-will employment
- The Maryland Department of Labor states that, in the absence of an express contract, agreement or policy to the contrary, an employee may be hired or fired for almost any reason, whether fair or not, or for no reason at all, and lists the exceptions, including illegal discrimination and retaliation for asserting statutory rights.
- Social media passwords
- Under Labor and Employment Section 3-712, an employer may not request or require an employee or applicant to disclose a user name, password or other means of accessing a personal account, and may not refuse to hire an applicant for declining, though it may require credentials for the employer's own systems and may investigate misuse of personal accounts for business purposes.
Metro markets in Maryland
Each metro page names the installations, agencies and employers that shape hiring there.
Industries hiring in Maryland
Specialties in demand in Maryland
Questions about hiring in Maryland
Does the Maryland wage range law apply to a contractor posting a cleared position at Fort Meade?
Yes. The Department of Labor's guidance says the law applies to essentially all employers in Maryland and to postings that seek workers based in Maryland even when the employer is headquartered elsewhere, and it requires the minimum and maximum rate, a general description of benefits and any other compensation in every public or internal posting.
Can a Maryland employer ask about criminal history at all?
After the first in-person or video interview, yes, subject to the other laws that govern the use of records, and the clearance process runs on its own rules under federal law. The state's ban-the-box law only bars the question before that first interview for employers with 15 or more full-time employees.