Employment Discrimination and Problem Interview Questions

Ever wondered if the questions a potential employer was asking you were legal?

That’s an important question if you’re interviewing for a job. It’s illegal for a potential employer to discriminate against you in the hiring process.

Employment discrimination can occur at any stage, including at the application stage. These days, it’s become increasingly difficult to fend off early-stage employment discrimination, especially when it’s so easy to look up job applicants online and get a better picture about them.

While many employers have policies about discarding resumes with photos, it’s now become very easy to look up a candidate on LinkedIn or on Facebook. In fact, if you apply for a job via LinkedIn, your photo might be a part of your profile and it can tell your race or age immediately.

Another way that latent employment discrimination can happen at the application stage is by looking at your graduation year, which can show an employer your age and thus, set you up for age discrimination.

While those situations make hiring discrimination hard to prove, bad interview questions make a case stronger. While really, it isn’t the question itself that is illegal, what an interviewer does with a question can lead to an illegal result, like discrimination. Here are some job interview questions that might point to discrimination:

• Any questions regarding your gender or your ability to do the job due to your gender. These could include questions about parenting or pregnancy, for example.
• Questions about your national origin.
• Questions about your sexual preference.

So, what do you do if you’re faced with potentially discriminatory interview questions?

The best thing you can do is to refrain from answering the question. Tell the employer (as politely as you can) that you don’t feel comfortable answering the questions.

While certain interview questions can help you set the stage for a discrimination lawsuit, it’s still very difficult to prove that you didn’t get the job because of discrimination. If you think about it, there are numerous job applicants — qualified job applicants. Many could have the same credentials as you. An employer can easily say that they hired someone who was “a better fit.”

Nevertheless, it still pays to know your rights.

Related Resources:

• Philadelphia Employment Lawyers (FindLaw)
• EEOC: Top Five Employment Claims Sued Over in Pennsylvania (FindLaw’s Philadelphia Employment News)
• Race Discrimination in the Workplace (FindLaw)
• Illegal Interview Questions and Female Applicants (FindLaw)