Posted on 09/10/2010 5:33:16 AM PDT by jwparkerjr
The rough economy has made many people desperate for a job. In their eagerness for gainful employment, many people may overlook improper interview questions. Depending on how they are asked, questions about personal topics such as marital status, race and health are more than just poor manners - they are illegal under federal and some state and local laws
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Reminds me of my recruiting days at a large US corporation. Due to affirmative action policies in the company, we were required to indicate the race of the applicant on the interview summary form. However, we weren’t allowed to ask the applicant what his race actually was.
“These programs exist, because a strong recommendation from a guy who know is good is worth a thousand BS interviews.”
Actually the problem is that when this occurs, the applicant is still asked to submit a resume. And herein lies the problem.
Companies like Taleo have produced software to make choices about applicants easier. What this has done is taken the “thought process” away from the HR rep and given it to a resume query which is looking for job description matches.
Resumes no longer have personalities. People no longer have personalities. What we are is a selection based on a set of criteria which actually makes it harder for an organization to hire someone.
Big deal a thousand people apply for a job. They have been doing that for years. Software cannot determine how you successfully handled a project. Software cannot determine how you handled a specific situation. Basically software doesn’t look past the first 500 words.
If you are fortunate enough to get past all of this and get the job, only one thing needs to be asked. Are you a US citizen? And that is more for taxation purposes than anything else. Every other question is irrelevant.
I don’t need to. How are they going to prove I am not?
Yep, and over 60 is worse.
“You’re forced to spend your time and effort interviewing someone who isn’t qualified for the job in the first place.”
As a manager with HR experience, I can tell you that there are more than a few ways to navigate these questions.
You can ask people for their date of birth - INSTEAD of their age.
Contrary to the news article, you ARE allowed to ask people how they wish to be addressed (i.e., Mrs., Miss, etc...) so long as you also ask the men this question. You can mention your spouse and kids to illicit comments from the interviewee about their spouse and kids!
You explain the job (with a written task analysis) and then ask them if they are 100% sure they can perform the job - have them sign a statement agreeing to the job requirements! If they fail to meet those - they can be terminated for falsifying their application!
There are MANY ways to get around all of these issues! Besides, resumes’ and first impressions handle 95% of all the less-than capable applicants - IF you have the right person running the HR department! I was running a security company and we had 80% new-hire retention. In the security field this is AMAZING!
Problem is that you are starting to find more and more HR personnel that are more interested in “helping people get jobs” than helping the company get good employees! Several of these “college graduates” don’t realize that good employees help the company keep the HR person employed! DUH!
But companies know that applicants are uniformed as to what can and can’t be asked. I would estimate that 70% of the jobs I have applied for on a company web site ask “Are you a US citizen.”
Also companies are devious. One way they attempt to get around the age factor is by asking when did you graduate from college or high school, thus allowing them to approximate your age.
This article also fails to say that those looking for gov jobs are SOL, because, if I am correct, these laws do not apply to our “overlords”.
Often times to avoid potentially tens of thousands for a headhunter. The previous place I worked refused to pay the 25% commission the headhunters wanted and would only pay 20% maximum. That meant that everyone the headhunters sent to us had already been through all of his good customers at least once and we got the leftovers, so we ended up doing most hiring from employee recommendations and walk-ins without headhunters.
It’s been a long long time since I applied for a real job (I did an interview for an opinion column job, but that is a contractor job, not an employee/employer job).
I just took a job as a Halloween Haunt monster at a local theme park. Last night we got to do all the paperwork. My daughter is also working, and at some point she said “I’m so sick of my name”, because of all the papers we had to fill out. I said “I guess this is your first real-life introduction into how intrusive your government is”.
For all the questions employers can’t ask you, there are way too many things they are REQUIRED to ask you in order to hire you — mostly to see if they are meeting quotas, following some anti-discrimination law, or whether they qualify for some tax break or another.
She was also incensed by the list of things she is not allowed to do as part of her job, because she is not 18.
The list isn’t really accurate. For example, it says they can ask if you are over 18; in fact, they can ask if you are under 40. At least, they do that with the forms, because they have to tell the government that information so they can prove they aren’t discriminating against people over 40.
Also, they asked for birthday, so I don’t see how they couldn’t know how old you were.
I see that the article makes a distinction between what can be asked before a job is offered, and what can be asked after a job is offered.
As part of filling out my paperwork in order to ACCEPT a job offer, I had to answer questions about most of the things they said couldn’t be asked. They asked about marital status, age, whether i had old injuries, etc.
re: job as a Halloween Haunt monster
Busch Gardens Tampa?
Age: Hiring for youth modeling
Marital status: For a job that spends 100% of the time on the road, I need to know if he's married and if so will his marriage interfere with his duties.
Race: Hiring an inner-city counselor where they don't trust Whitey.
Religion: Hiring for many positions in a church. Atheists simply aren't qualified by reason of religion.
It’s only a matter of time before an applicant’s below average intelligence quotient can’t be held against them for a job opening.
Afterall, it’s not their fault they’re dumb. Why should all the smart people get to be doctors?
The government uses one of these automated programs too. But all it does is look for various keywords and criteria to match potential applicants. For example, if a potential machinist doesn’t have “lathe” on his resume, then his resume will be rejected for a job that requires running a lathe.
But that’s just the first cut. After that it goes back to human eyes to choose which applicants to interview.
Also, they asked for birthday, so I don’t see how they couldn’t know how old you were.
If they asked for your birth date they broke the law. (if you’re on FR though I assume you aren’t the ambulance chasing sort)
A good book, I would recommend to any one looking or planning to look for a job, that explains the games HR plays, the mistakes canidates make and how to avoid them in job interviewing is: “What does somebody have to do to get a job around here? 44 insider secrets that will get you hired” by Cynthia Shapiro.
It lays out many of the myths/traps, on both sides, of the hiring process and how one can avoid the traps, be a more successful interviewee and improve one’s chances of getting hired.
Questions about marital status are prohibited. Employers might be tempted to ask this question to find out if your relationship could have a negative impact on your work.
I was once asked this question by a woman interviewer. And I thought she was probably asking because she wanted to enhance her own marital prospects. Even though I was single, which I figured was the answer she was looking for, I wasn't that interested in her company or her at that point, so I said that I wasn't sure she could ask that.
Even though it may be illegal for the interviewer to ask certain questions, it's not clear that interviewees really have the option of not answering them.
1. pay for it without taxes, and
2. rescind some other law on the books
these laws which handcuff employers must go away!!!
“How does age, marital status, race, or religion impact someone’s qualifications for the job?
“
Because if they are a MUslim I want nothign do with them. If they believe in the crap muslims believe in I want nothing to do with them as they are one messed up idiot.
No, Kings Dominion - Virginia.
I was recently in Busch Gardens-Tampa though, as part of our August Theme Park excursion. Nice park. My wife loves the animals there.
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