With 2016 well under way, some of those resolutions you made for the new year — like finding a new job — might be starting to pan out.
Half of U.S. workers were considering a change around the first of the year, according to a survey by jobs site Indeed, and year over year, the site’s traffic for job searches surges in January.
Now that it’s February, maybe you have some job interviews lined up. And along with the usual prep, you might add this to your list: knowing which questions a potential employer isn’t legally allowed to ask you.
A collection of anti-discrimination laws prevents employers from making hiring decisions based on age, race, religion, gender, national origin, military service, disability or genetic information (such as risk for an inherited disease). Thus they’re not allowed to ask questions that would require the candidate to reveal those things during the interview process — sometimes simple questions like, “Are you married? Do you plan to start a family soon?” Or: “Which church do you go to?”
Lisa Lovett, assistant director in employer development at the University of Colorado’s Career Services office, said it happens “all the time.”
Recruiters usually know the laws, she said. But once you get further into the process and are interviewing with the hiring manager, who might be an expert in, say, engineering rather than human resources — that’s often when employers ask the questions they shouldn’t. It’s usually a misstep in trying to build a rapport, and they might not even know they’re doing it, she said.
“Some of the questions can be pretty casual, and they might not seem like they matter. But they can be pretty impactful,” Lovett said.
It was fairly casual when it happened to Diego Aparicio twice during job interviews in the past few months. During a January interview, someone asked him, “Where are you from?”
“When he asked, I hesitated,” he said. “I knew right away it was illegal. But I wasn’t sure how to answer it.”
At the end of another interview, he was on his way out when it happened. “I’m hanging out by the elevator. I’m about to leave, and the person who was interviewing me said, ‘How old are you?’ ”
It’s hard to know what to do, he said. Both times, he ended up answering the question. “Do you want to ruin the vibe of your interview? Do you want to tell the employer it’s an illegal question?”
“How do you handle it?”
Interviews are a strange situation, Lovett said. You’re trying to make something formal feel informal and casual, even though a job interview is neither informal nor casual.
As for how to react to an illegal question, Lovett said it’s up to the individual. But if you feel like something is off, it’s always fair to ask the interviewer to take a step back, or buy yourself time to think.
“There’s a sense of urgency and a rush to respond to questions,” she said. “But there’s no reason you can’t ask a recruiter to clarify a question, giving yourself the time to step back.”
Lovett said to remember that during the interview process, job candidates are interviewing the company just as much as the company is interviewing the candidate.
“Generally, if you feel uncomfortable during an interview because of the questions being asked, that’s a pretty big red flag for whether you’d want to work at that organization,” Lovett said.
Paul Wolfe, senior vice president of human resources at Indeed, echoed that sentiment — you’re interviewing the company, too. But if you’re in the middle of the interview process and there’s a misstep, “you have to gauge whether it’s a culture thing that’s pervasive or it was a one-off thing.”
Wolfe said he thinks about answering those illegal questions in three ways — one of which is to answer it.
Another is the middle-ground way: “Let’s say the question is, ‘How old are you?’ You can say, ‘Well, what I think you’re getting at is, how much experience do I have?’ You’ve re-framed the question, so it does send an indicator to him or her.”
The third option might burn a bridge, and that might be fine by you, he said. “I think the most in-your-face, you’re-probably-not-going-to-get-the-job way is, ‘That’s not an appropriate question.’ “
In other interviews Aparicio has been to, interviewers have framed questions differently, attempting to skirt the direct question about national origin. “One way they’ve been asking is, ‘Where did you grow up?’ or ‘Where is home?’ ”
( According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission website, “Generally, employers should not use non-job-related questions about an applicant’s lineage, ancestry, national origin, descent, place of birth, mother tongue, or national origin of applicant’s parents or spouse.”)
Often, Wolfe said, asking illegal questions is just poor interviewing. It’s not getting at what really matters to the company.
For example: When asking about a candidate’s marital status or family, “I think what people are trying to get at is, ‘Are you going to be able to commit X-number of hours,’ ” he said. A different way to ask that question is, “How do you manage your priorities in any given day?”
Perhaps the bottom line, Lovett said, is to practice with a variety of questions, including potentially illegal ones, before heading into an interview. Practice with a family member or friend or in front of a mirror.
“If you go into it blind, you could get caught off guard by some of those questions they’re not supposed to ask.”
Jenn Fields: 303-954-1599, jfields@denverpost.com or @jennfields
