What you need to know about what they can ask
Job interviewers are not allowed to ask certain questions. But what do you say if they do?
from the July 23, 2007 edition
- Jeannette Boccini, a New York publicist
Page 2 of 4
Petrella, the father of three children, offers a hypothetical example. "If I'm interviewing a woman and she says she has two little ones at home, we might start talking about the kids. It's not an issue that should be discussed. If the person doesn't get the job, they can turn around and sue the employer, saying, 'All we talked about was the kids.' "
Even so, inappropriate questions do not usually result in a lawsuit, Petrella says. "But we will often get demand letters from clients. They'll say that an applicant is alleging they've been discriminated against. Frequently it's [about] disabilities. Very often it's women who get asked questions about child care. Sometimes it's an applicant just wishing it doesn't happen to someone else."
In interviewing applicants with disabilities, Petrella says, "You can ask if they can perform the essential functions, but you can't ask how they're going to do it. Once an offer is made, you can talk about whether they need an accommodation."
Despite progress, women still face questions about family issues. One of Christine Hohlbaum's first job interviews after grad school was for a position as a coordinator for an international youth exchange organization. "The CEO had his volunteers ask me questions such as 'Are you married?' and 'Do you have kids yet?' " she says. "One even said to me, 'You aren't gonna leave us to have kids, are ya?' "
When she did not get the job, Ms. Hohlbaum, author of "Diary of a Mother," wrote a letter to the CEO complaining about his unprofessional staff. She heard later that he had come under fire for unethical behavior.
Sometimes interviewers try to take an indirect approach. Two weeks ago, when Frank Maltese of New York was preparing to be interviewed for a comptroller's position, a woman in the human resources department made a request: "Please bring your driver's license to the interview."
Mr. Maltese, who is in his 60s, knew what that meant: The company wanted to learn his age, a question they could not legally ask. He canceled the interview. "It was a waste of my time even to go there," he says, explaining that this was not the first time prospective employers have tried to ferret out his age.
Last year an interviewer at a hospital asked Maltese when he graduated from college. "I said, 'You should not ask that question.' " Others have wanted to know how old his children are, or if any are married. "They're piecing time periods together," he says.
For Joseph Dans, religion became a problematic subject. When he was a candidate for a director's position at a large nonprofit organization, one interviewer asked, "What is your church affiliation?"
The question "just kind of floored me," says Mr. Dans. "I replied, 'If it's relevant, I'm Lutheran.' I didn't get the job. Obviously it was the wrong question to ask from a legal perspective, but what's the right answer?" He is currently a director for a public relations firm in New York.
RSS feed
