Hire Questions

Yesterday Yahoo Financial posted an article reviewing illegal hiring questions. If one were to read the comments, you would think this article was joking.

Let it be known that employers do ask these questions, if not flat out, and they definitely skirt around to get the answers they are looking for: your age can be found from any "government id document" or background check or resume educational information; same goes for your race. If you are one of the throw-caution-to-the-wind people, your Facebook profile is a landmine of information waiting to be tipped. If you should happen to snag an interview while visibly pregnant, well, enough said.

While I consider myself a professional applicant (I estimate I have applied to over 600 jobs in the last five years) and fully aware of what is legal, I have been forced to answer every one of these questions in some fashion. I can not count the times I've stated my graduation year, marital status, citizenship, race, and whether I need disability accommodations to perform on applications. Later in interviews, I have had to carefully avoid discussions about religious influences, family plans, and be willing to submit to drugs tests at any time.

Perhaps the next time one fills out an application, they get creative with their answers. Want to calculate my age? Too bad, I'm only listing my degree and school, not year. I never complete the Mrs, Miss, Ms or Mr category (oh, how many interviews have been waylaid by one assuming my gender in the first place and promptly being disappointed - yet another illegal hiring move for another blog!). All other categories are off limits and frankly unrelated to just about every job.

I will, however, prove my citizenship status because that is the only thing left going for me in today's employment climate.