Actually, some schools can not verify without the year of graduation. You can say otherwise, but I did background checks like this for a living.
You could ask: “The working hours for this position are 8am-5pm, Monday-Friday. Are you able to work those hours?”
I would think “Do you have **access to ** reliable transportation?” would be OK, but “Do you have a reliable car?” would be over the line. My employer has no need to know if I’ll be driving, taking the bus, riding a bike, or walking. The employer could use the “bus test” to keep out the unwashed masses who don’t own a car.
Come on. This is so far out there, it’s ridiculous.
There is no “over the line”, Bayard, because there is no line. That’s what I’m saying. There are several situations I can think of where an employer DOES need to know if you have a reliable car…for example, if you’re doing pizza delivery.
I work in HR and specialize in employment law, so I say again with confidence, there are no illegal interview questions. It is what you do with that information that is illegal.
I opened a GQ thread on this so we can get some answers to the “illegal” vs “just a dumb thing to do” re: questions on race, religion, national origin, etc.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=9290275
Right. And it’s not illegal if the person in question is under age 40. So asking questions that relate to age but are not meant to determine if someone is 40 or older are legal. If I don’t want to hire teenagers or 30-year-olds there is no law that says I have to or that’s wrong for me not to, nor can I be sued for not wishing to hire them or not hiring them. It might be hard to tell a 30-year-old from a 40, but it’s easy to tell a 16-year-old from a 30. And if I want to discriminate and not hire the 16, then I can. Because it’s not illegal, even if it’s “discrimination.” I can discriminate against many different unprotected classes and nobody can do a damn thing about it.
Duckster, almost the entire of your post #37 is wrong. All of those questions that I listed as legal ARE legal. Whether you (or anyone) term them to be dodgy is not the issue. They are legal, and they are listed as being legal in some of the cites given by others, such as “When did you graduate from high school” and “What professional organizations do you belong to?”
As far as asking irrelevant questions, there is absolutely nothing illegal about asking irrelevant questions that have zero to do with the job. I’m not referring to whether an applicant can interpret the answers they gave to them as the basis for discrimination and initiate a suit. I’m listing what is legal, which is what this thread is about. And it is legal to ask everything I said.
Another legal question is “We’re open on Saturdays all day and Sundays from 8-12. Do you have other commitments that would prevent you from working those shifts?” If the business is open then, it’s legal to ask. What is NOT legal would be, “What’s your typical Sunday morning routine?”
Any pre-employment question asked at an interview that does not address merit qualifications for the position are suspect. And has been demonstrated in the thread, some questions are illegal regardless.
If you ask a question that is age-related to someone not of the protected class (under 40), yet do not ask the question to someone in the protected class (40 and over) for the same job, you are establishing an intent to discriminate on account of age. If you do not want to employ a 16-year old just because of age, then structure the qualifications for the job that a 16-year old is unable to meet on merit alone. As I said before, asking any age-related question that does not have any merit behind the qualifications for the job establishes intent to discriminate, legal or otherwise. It’s the mindset that will eventually catch up with you and someone within a protected class (40 and over) astute enough will eventually nail that kind of employer.
There is a concept in equal opportunity known as disparate impact. That means that even if the questions asked during an interview have no discriminatory intent, but can be shown the results of asking those questions show discrimination, the employer is SOL.
Asking a legal, irrelevant question may result in disparate impact. Cutting off your nose in spite of your face just because you can (and it’s legal to do so) is never a prudent move.
Sorry but incorrect. The moment you ask about other commitments, you are setting yourself up for discrimination from those applicants whose cultural, religious and/or national origin practices do not agree with “traditional” WASP attitudes.
If you were to state, “The job requires working all day Saturday and from 8-12 on Sundays,” on the job announcement and not during an interview would keep you safe. It is up to the applicant to decide whether their commitments – which are none of your business - would prevent them from meeting the baseline requirements for the job.
Duckster, what sort of experience do you have in interviewing/recruiting?
My experiences are that the vast majority of respondents to a job posting barely remember the company’s name, nevermind the job requirements. Several times a week, I call people for interviews, and then find out they are unable to meet the scheduling needs, don’t like the salary, need part-time, want different hours, etc. If I was unable to ask these questions, filling jobs would be nearly impossible.
This has not been demonstrated. Someone show me one federal statue that proves this.
Yes, all those questions are illegal. Our HR people would shit if we asked any of those questions.
The reason your HR people would shit over those questions is probably because they feel it is in their best interests to “Cover Their Asses” in the event of a discrimination lawsuit. The questions seem to not be illegal.
Or are they? 
Hmmmm. If you have that much difficulty trying to fill jobs, is it because the area of consideration (the net you cast) only covers a potential employment pool of poorly skilled people, the job location isn’t the greatest, or is even the jobs you offer lack an incentive to be hired, say liveable wages for the community? I’m not trying to be snarky. And yes, I am aware that attitudes toward looking for a job have really changed in the last 25 years. So many people I see these days have a warped sense of entitlement (“You owe me this job.” “Do I get a company car?” “How many days off do I get?” Yadda, yadda.).
It seems to me that if the difficulties you have force you to a gray area of interview questions, then perhaps your employer needs to take a long, hard look at itself. Again, not implying your employer is a big, bad meanie. It just appears to me that if you have to dumb down the interview process, you get what you pay for. Only your employer knows just how important those jobs are to be filled (are you always hiring for the same jobs again and again?) to stay in business.
As for my quals, I’ve been involved in equal opportunity issues at the federal level for more than 20 years. It’s not a primary duty but I’m recognized for the work I do. Right now my specialty is addressing Section 508 issues. That can of worms is ripe for some hefty lawsuits the feds will decidedly lose as easy as it is to make a snoball right now in many parts of the country.
Specifically, it is not the ASKING of the questions that is illegal (at least according to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964). Such questions, however, expose the company to an unacceptable level of litigation risk . The assumption during an interview is that your hiring practices are reflected in the questions you ask.
Yes, it is a bit of HR CYA because questions like:
Marital status: single/married
Spouse’s job:
Number of children:
Children’s ages:
How did you finance your college education:
are not pertenant to the position.
“Did you graduate high school / college / grad school?” ARE perfectly legitimate as an appropriate educational background are prerequisits for the position. And “when do you expect to graduate” is also legitimate as the job requires a full-time commitment.
Questions about where you live are frowned upon as it can be interpreted that you are descriminating based on class. “Would you have any trouble getting to work during our core hours?” is a better question.
I’ve had one candidate tell me “my weight” (he was fat) when I asked “what challenges do you feel you might face working here?”. I told him that as the job is not physical in nature, his weight has no bearing on the position (and could you give me a real answer to my question while you’re at it?).
It’s very difficult to sue a firm for asking these questions anyway. If you happen to be faced with one, I would just politely say the following:
Marital status: single/married - My relationship status will have no bearing on how I perform my duties.
Spouse’s job - Do you have any specific concerns regarding a potential conflict of interest?
Number of children / Children’s ages - I do not plan to let my family life interfear with my responsibilities to my job.
How did you finance your college education - My current financial situation is stable.
Actually, regarding the spouses job - When I worked for a Big 4 accounting firm and because my live in GF works for a rating agency, we may need to recuse ourselves from certain projects because of each others investments. For example, if I were an accountant, I might not be able to audit a company she worked for.
But that’s something that’s dealt with once your hired. It shouldn’t be asked on an interview. It might be percieved as fishing to see if she’s going to quit in 6 months to be a stay at home mom living off her husbands salary.
Your second cite seems to state pretty clearly that, at least in some jurisdictions, some questions are illegal in any case, with the caveat that:
It looks like it’s going to be hard to get a definite yes/no answer to the question. A couple of points from the document that address this discussion directly:
Good find!
and reported.