How much of a red flag are possibly illegal interview questions?
April 16, 2017 8:37 AM Subscribe
Had a first interview for a job that sounds great based on the description. During the interview I was asked "how diverse my personal life is" and "where is home?". I am really interested in the role but am not sure how concerned to be about the interview questions. The 'justification' I can think of for these questions coming up... TIA.
1. I am bilingual in another language but not bi-cultural. I appeared to be the only one in the group who isn't a person of color. The job involves working with immigrants and other cultures, so maybe they were trying to find out if I'm some sort of xenophobe? Or if had some inkling what it's like to navigate live as part of a non-dominant group?
2. Re: 'where is home,' I was late for the interview despite calling ahead and apologizing profusely. Maybe they were worried about my commute?
3. The people interviewing me were people I'd be supervising, not managers. I am assuming they don't have a lot of interview experience because of these weird questions and also them not asking other questions I'd consider important in our field.
1. I am bilingual in another language but not bi-cultural. I appeared to be the only one in the group who isn't a person of color. The job involves working with immigrants and other cultures, so maybe they were trying to find out if I'm some sort of xenophobe? Or if had some inkling what it's like to navigate live as part of a non-dominant group?
2. Re: 'where is home,' I was late for the interview despite calling ahead and apologizing profusely. Maybe they were worried about my commute?
3. The people interviewing me were people I'd be supervising, not managers. I am assuming they don't have a lot of interview experience because of these weird questions and also them not asking other questions I'd consider important in our field.
Best answer: First, there's no such thing as an "illegal" question. But there are types of information that can not be used for the sake of making an employment decision. Generally speaking, they are: Age;
race, ethnicity, or color; gender or sex; country of national origin or birth place; religion; disability; marital or family status or pregnancy.
Being asked about these things is not illegal, but it opens the company up to a lawsuit if a candidate is asked one of these questions and then not offered a position.
All that said...
During the interview I was asked "how diverse my personal life is" and "where is home?".
Neither of those questions strikes me as putting the interviewer on the road to possibly discrimination. I typically ask where a candidate where home is, how their commute was, if they had trouble finding us, etc.
The question of how diverse a group of people you interact with on a daily basis seems directly applicable to the mission of the organization ("The job involves working with immigrants and other cultures"), and I would imagine, to the ability of the candidate to interact with those customers or stakeholders in the course of their work.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 8:54 AM on April 16, 2017 [12 favorites]
race, ethnicity, or color; gender or sex; country of national origin or birth place; religion; disability; marital or family status or pregnancy.
Being asked about these things is not illegal, but it opens the company up to a lawsuit if a candidate is asked one of these questions and then not offered a position.
All that said...
During the interview I was asked "how diverse my personal life is" and "where is home?".
Neither of those questions strikes me as putting the interviewer on the road to possibly discrimination. I typically ask where a candidate where home is, how their commute was, if they had trouble finding us, etc.
The question of how diverse a group of people you interact with on a daily basis seems directly applicable to the mission of the organization ("The job involves working with immigrants and other cultures"), and I would imagine, to the ability of the candidate to interact with those customers or stakeholders in the course of their work.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 8:54 AM on April 16, 2017 [12 favorites]
Is it possible that "where is home" is a tell-me-about-yourself question? I mean, it's practically an essay question.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 8:55 AM on April 16, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 8:55 AM on April 16, 2017 [5 favorites]
Response by poster: Clarification re: "Where is home", I asked 'where was I born?' and they said, 'No, where you live now.' I don't mind saying, because it's on my resume. I guess they didn't have it or didn't look.
posted by ShadePlant at 9:00 AM on April 16, 2017
posted by ShadePlant at 9:00 AM on April 16, 2017
Best answer: I think it's possible they were trying to get at something along the lines of whether you are someone who genuinely lives among and interacts with immigrant and non-white communities, or someone who is a professional white saviour, coming in from a gated suburb to their organization to save them from themselves.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:02 AM on April 16, 2017 [14 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 9:02 AM on April 16, 2017 [14 favorites]
I guess I'd be less worried since these are the folks you'll be managing, not folks who'll be managing you. If you take the job, go in aware that you may have some coaching to do with these folks!
Since the job involves working with immigrants and people from different cultures, it seems like the questions may have been well-intended but poorly-phrased attempts to make sure you'd fit in that role? For example, maybe their prior manager was utterly clueless about other cultures and it was a constant PITA for the other employees.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 9:09 AM on April 16, 2017 [2 favorites]
Since the job involves working with immigrants and people from different cultures, it seems like the questions may have been well-intended but poorly-phrased attempts to make sure you'd fit in that role? For example, maybe their prior manager was utterly clueless about other cultures and it was a constant PITA for the other employees.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 9:09 AM on April 16, 2017 [2 favorites]
In the tech world, I do know that there have been cases of initial Skype or phone interviews with a candidate, to pass the first screening, then a live interview where the one who showed up was not the same person. Perhaps there was some awareness of wanting to make sure you "gave the correct answers" ?
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 9:35 AM on April 16, 2017
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 9:35 AM on April 16, 2017
The fact that these questions were asked by potential subordinates makes all the difference in the world. Given the nature of the work and the organization, I would say these questions signal some natural curiosity about you, particularly since you are a bit out of the ordinary for the context. (Although even if they were asked by HR or a prospective boss, they wouldn't raise a red flag for me and part of my job is coaching people about how to conduct good job interviews.)
posted by DrGail at 9:50 AM on April 16, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by DrGail at 9:50 AM on April 16, 2017 [3 favorites]
I would take "where is home" to be a total small talk question - it's a phrasing I hear all the time, I guess it sounds less harsh than "where do you live"? It's along the lines of "so, did you find the office okay?" Just a way to ease into an interview with some casual transportation chat.
posted by cpatterson at 9:51 AM on April 16, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by cpatterson at 9:51 AM on April 16, 2017 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: I appreciate all the responses. I was hoping the questions seemed more culturally appropriate for that workplace and don't mean it's a hot mess. If I am offered a second interview I will keep all this in mind.
posted by ShadePlant at 10:22 AM on April 16, 2017
posted by ShadePlant at 10:22 AM on April 16, 2017
"how diverse my personal life is"
You make it sound like "some sort of xenophobe" isn't the default state for white people, but it's pretty normal for members of a dominant culture or ethnic group to not be fully comfortable with members of minority groups. But it's a question that could very well have been asked of anybody going into this position, because this position seems to make diversity specifically relevant to the job they want done--it's a diverse team and a diverse population of people they work with, and it sounds like the best candidate for that job is going to be someone who's comfortable talking about diversity and what it means to them.
It would have been one thing if they'd asked you about spouse/family/kids specifically, but "personal life" encompasses a lot of stuff. This seems like, if anything, a totally softball question leading you to talk about your experiences with diversity on a personal level, and if you missed it, it might be worth taking some time to think about that now?
posted by Sequence at 10:31 AM on April 16, 2017 [15 favorites]
You make it sound like "some sort of xenophobe" isn't the default state for white people, but it's pretty normal for members of a dominant culture or ethnic group to not be fully comfortable with members of minority groups. But it's a question that could very well have been asked of anybody going into this position, because this position seems to make diversity specifically relevant to the job they want done--it's a diverse team and a diverse population of people they work with, and it sounds like the best candidate for that job is going to be someone who's comfortable talking about diversity and what it means to them.
It would have been one thing if they'd asked you about spouse/family/kids specifically, but "personal life" encompasses a lot of stuff. This seems like, if anything, a totally softball question leading you to talk about your experiences with diversity on a personal level, and if you missed it, it might be worth taking some time to think about that now?
posted by Sequence at 10:31 AM on April 16, 2017 [15 favorites]
Not exactly an answer, but I wonder what questions you could ask them if you have a second interview to suss out whether the organization is a hot mess of clusterfuck, or was just clumsily trying to figure out your xenophobe/white savior quotient.
posted by tapir-whorf at 11:21 AM on April 16, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by tapir-whorf at 11:21 AM on April 16, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I get why the questions are important to ask, I was just I guess surprised at how they were brought up. I didn't know they could be brought up in an interview honestly, even though they're meaningful. The second interview will be with an MD, and I was already warned by this group that the MD's 'don't get what 'group' does,' so I suspect that interview may be very different if it happens.
posted by ShadePlant at 11:25 AM on April 16, 2017
posted by ShadePlant at 11:25 AM on April 16, 2017
Best answer: Honestly, these don't sound like illegal questions, just questions asked by people who don't know much about interviewing and how to get actually useful answers.
It sounds like cultural competency is an important skill to have in this job and to learn more about your cultural competency they could have asked you something like, "Tell us about a time when you had to work with people from different background with you. What specific things did you do to earn their trust? What lessons did you take away from that experience?"
The best indicator of future job performance is past performance and as someone who has done a lot of interviews I have found that asking questions that require an interviewee to explain how they've used their skills in other situations gives a much better indicator of whether or not they can do the job they are being interviewed about.
It sounds like you should go into the next interview, should you get one, with some prepared questions about their organizational culture, since there's an indication of disconnect between management and the folks who are actually doing the work.
posted by brookeb at 11:55 AM on April 16, 2017 [4 favorites]
It sounds like cultural competency is an important skill to have in this job and to learn more about your cultural competency they could have asked you something like, "Tell us about a time when you had to work with people from different background with you. What specific things did you do to earn their trust? What lessons did you take away from that experience?"
The best indicator of future job performance is past performance and as someone who has done a lot of interviews I have found that asking questions that require an interviewee to explain how they've used their skills in other situations gives a much better indicator of whether or not they can do the job they are being interviewed about.
It sounds like you should go into the next interview, should you get one, with some prepared questions about their organizational culture, since there's an indication of disconnect between management and the folks who are actually doing the work.
posted by brookeb at 11:55 AM on April 16, 2017 [4 favorites]
I agree that these don't sound discriminatory, just terrible interview questions. Asking where you live is normal conversation in an interview, but "where is home?" is just awkward.
posted by radioamy at 5:25 PM on April 16, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by radioamy at 5:25 PM on April 16, 2017 [1 favorite]
It depends on your state, actually. On top of the federal EEO sections, many states include additional categories. Living in Massachusetts, I would red flag the hell out of the "how diverse is your personal life" question. I manage others and recently took a HR course on how to manage situations that could skirt on the edge of legal issues, so maybe I'm a bit sensitive lately, FWIW. However, put into the context you give, I think it was poorly worded small talk from kind of a bonehead.
What the hell does that mean even?
"I have two dogs and a cat"?
"I decorate using yellow, green and pink"?
"I like to eat all cuisines"?
...your personal life is none of their business.
The home question is a bit more innocuous.
posted by floweredfish at 6:04 PM on April 16, 2017 [1 favorite]
What the hell does that mean even?
"I have two dogs and a cat"?
"I decorate using yellow, green and pink"?
"I like to eat all cuisines"?
...your personal life is none of their business.
The home question is a bit more innocuous.
posted by floweredfish at 6:04 PM on April 16, 2017 [1 favorite]
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If they were wondering about your commute, they'd have asked "where do you live?"
As to how much this is a red flag, I'm not sure. For what it's worth, I wouldn't have taken it amiss. The question about diversity in your personal life, on the other hand....
posted by basalganglia at 8:49 AM on April 16, 2017 [3 favorites]