Yesterday, I had an interview with a recruiting agency. I’m keeping my eyes open for a new IT gig since my current employer’s future is looking not so good. Anyway, I went to talk to the recruiter about an IT auditor position.
So, they had me fill out an application form. No problem. I’ve filled out scads of these things. Name? OK. Address? Sure thing. Home ownership? Uh, WTF? It went on like so:
Home status (check one): own, rent, live with others
Marital status: single/married
Spouse’s job:
Number of children:
Children’s ages:
How did you finance your college education:
High school: (OK). Years attended: (not OK)
I’m thinking that some or all of these are illegal. I left them blank. The interviewer, seeing that I hadn’t answered the question about financing my education, asked me directly. I said, “I’m not sure why you’re asking that question.” He spouted some nonsense about employers viewing it favorably if people paid for their own college or worked through college. Keep in mind that I am thirty-fucking-four. How I paid for college 15 years ago is kinda irrelevant now. Plus I have never, in all the hundreds of interviews I’ve been on, had anyone ask me this. I said, “Well, I did have a job while I was in college, but I don’t want to get into specifics about how I paid for my tuition.” He dropped it, and the interview went on.
Unfair hiring practices piss me off. This incident doesn’t hurt me directly, since I’m currently employed and don’t really need a new job this minute. But this kind of thing just galls me. So, I’m thinking about reporting these clowns to the Attorney General. My questions to the SDMB are:
Am I correct in thinking that these are illegal questions? (You are not my lawyer, blah blah blah) (By the way, I am in the US, in Ohio.)
Have you ever reported something like this? To whom? Did you have to get involved in any legal action?
That’s one screwed up recruiting agency. I’m not sure it’s illegal since they are not the ones who will be hiring you, but of course I know nothing about law.
However, your experience with this recruiting agency (it wouldn’t happen to be the one without the word “One Quarter” or “Three Quarters” in their name, would it?), is not standard for IT recruiters. I have worked as a consultant for the past 6 years and have never had to answer any questionnaire like that. I would advise you to tell these guys to remove your name from their database and work with someone else, anyone. If you need specific recommendations please let me know privately.
Having conducted interviews in the past, I was told I could not ask about owning/renting one’s home, marital status, and children. Some quick googling turns up ample cites that those questions cannot be asked. (My thought was, why would I ask those questions?) No idea about the college education or high school years attended, though.
I’d encourage you to report the company. You may not need the job, but clearly there are those who would and would feel compelled to answer the questions, illegal or not. In fact, you – someone who doesn’t owe that recruiting company anything – are the ideal person to report this incident. If you don’t, who will?
I was wondering about this. Maybe there is some loophole they can exploit for this reason?
No, it’s a small local place. Kind of smarmy in general, too.
This is pretty much what I’m thinking. I have the letter to the AG drafted, but I haven’t submitted it yet. I just want to get a sense of what I’m in for once I report it. Like, will men in suits suddenly start pestering me with words I don’t understand, such as “deposition” and “subpoena”?
Nah. The state will want just a tip-off so that they can start an investigation of their own, and they can get all the evidence they need once that happens.
The recruiter may be the employer if they’re like Manpower, which hires workers to farm out to other companies. Even if they’re acting as the agent for a direct hire for another company, they’re still bound by employment law and they may be putting both themselves and the company they’re recruiting for on the hook.
What Moto said. They’ll send their own shill in to fill out an app. Then they’ll issue a warrant for all the files and check through them for anything needing their attention.
There is nothing wrong with asking somebody when they graduated or obtained their GED. You need to know the date in order to be able to verify the diploma.
Normally I would say not to report illegal questions if they were asked innocently and if the interviewee could rephrase them to answer the question that the interviewer was trying to ask. But this is such an egregious case that it needs to be reported. What appalls me is that it is a recruiting agency. They should know the law more than any other group out there (other than lawyers, of course).
That was also my understanding. Since almost everyone starts HS at about age 14, you’re basically asking them how old they are.
So, I just submitted the complaint to Ohio’s Attorney General. Strangely, I feel kind of nervous about this. I guess I just don’t like conflict, even though the AG is unlikely to contact me, as Mr. Moto and Projammer point out.
I first heard of these guys because the career office at the MBA program I’m in forwarded their information on to us part time students. So, I also informed the career office about them. I took their forwarding the information as an approval of the company, which in retrospect was naive. Anyway, I figure they should know about it too.
I recently interviewed with a bunch of IT recruiters, and never got asked anything like that.
Those questions are all definitely not kosher. Employers can’t discriminate on marital or family status, so they can’t ask the questions about marital status or number or ages of children. Doing so is just asking for a discrimination lawsuit.
Good on you for not letting this slide. This kind of crap may be illegal, but it’s still going to happen if people let sleazoid employers who want to discriminate get away with it.
I’m currently working for an IT recruiting firm based in Ohio, and am having a pretty good experience. Email me if you want more info.
FYI, lots of questions that people think are illegal are not illegal at all. What is illegal is to base a decision not to hire them on whatever they said.
That part is a pain in the ass for an employer to deal with in a lawsuit, so they just don’t ask the questions that might have anything at all to do with that stuff in the first place. But it’s not illegal to ask the questions themselves. It’s just easier not to.
IANAL, but if they were sued for discrimination by someone, and the case went to trial, having questions like that on their application probably wouldn’t look too good to a jury considering the case… It’s not a good move for a company to appear as if they do something illegal (and that a lot of people find immoral), even if they don’t actually do anything illegal or immoral.
There are no illegal interview questions. What law do you think this employer is violating?
Now, whether or not this is a good idea is another question entirely.
I think we can all agree that those are terrible questions to ask, and set you up nicely for a discrimination claim. It’s what you do with the answers that may be illegal.
I’m not an attorney (dunno if anyone else on this thread is; if not, maybe one will drop in to assist). Some apparently reputable sources I’m seeing (here and here) state that asking the questions at all is illegal. I looked on the EEOC site, but I can’t find a clear answer. In any case, there is no reason to ask “do you have children” unless you plan to discriminate based on the answer.
It’s a boneheaded move. Either they’re asking it because they plan to do some illegal discrimination, or they’re asking questions that have historically been used for now-illegal discrimination on their application form for no reason at all.