Asking personal Questions at interviews??

There it is again kids being mentioned... let the new employee prove themselves before judging.
 
BONDGIRL said:
There it is again kids being mentioned... let the new employee prove themselves before judging.
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Prove themselves at a cost to the employer. Between training, wages and lost time it could be a very costly practice of act first ask questions later.
 
Vanilla said:
Agree with Complainer.

If having three children under five makes you unsuitable to a certain position, would it be different if you were the dad or the mom?
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Therein lies the problem, a woman automatically assumes that sexism is at play when a general remark was made.
 
MrMan said:
Not unless you are friends as most people above a certain age will have their profile on private and only available to their selected friends.
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It is ridiculously easy to hack into a person's facebook even if it set to private.
Sure google it and learn more
A reason I never had a facebook or bebo account.

Having said that, there are many posts from me on AAM I'm not proud of!
 
micmclo said:
It is ridiculously easy to hack into a person's facebook even if it set to private.
Sure google it and learn more
A reason I never had a facebook or bebo account.

Having said that, there are many posts from me on AAM I'm not proud of!
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I know facebook is very open, but having a company hack your file to find out more about you is a little extreme.
 
micmclo said:
It is ridiculously easy to hack into a person's facebook even if it set to private.
Sure google it and learn more
A reason I never had a facebook or bebo account.
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It is quite difficult to find a given person on FB, let alone hack their privacy. Unless they have a very rare name, you probably won't find them. And if you do find them, you wont know for sure that the Joe Bloggs you've found is the Joe Bloggs you are interviewing.

So fancy a challenge? I'll set up a new FB account, and give you 3 days to take the 'ridiculously easy' actions to hack it? €100 to a charity of your choice if you succeed?


MrMan said:
Therein lies the problem, a woman automatically assumes that sexism is at play when a general remark was made.
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I think the sexism is shown by your decision to challenge the female poster while ignoring the male poster who made pretty-much the same point. Now I'm starting to understand why you are so attached to those probing questions about issues that are none of your business.
 
MrMan said:
Prove themselves at a cost to the employer. Between training, wages and lost time it could be a very costly practice of act first ask questions later.
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This is bull... everyone has to prove themselves, everyone... my point if finding out I have kids at interview stage and not letting me prove myself first is unfair, unprofessional.

I started mew job last week (not this job I interviewd for). I am doing great. Had to stay back late few nights as I am manager and my husband took care of our child. I am dedicated to my family and to always working hard. I can do both but so so many employers men and woman don't seethe bigger picture.
 
Complainer said:
........And if you do find them, you wont know for sure that the Joe Bloggs you've found is the Joe Bloggs you are interviewing.........
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Who's to say that the company that is interviewing a person, checks up only on that persons FB account before the interview..............what is to stop the company checking up the persons FB account after the interview....just to get some additional info........afterall a company may not decide to offer a position to a person straight away!
 
Same issue applies after interview. Finding someone on FB by name is a needle in a haystack job.
 

Which male poster are you talking about?
 

You say let them prove themselves before judging them, Surely the interview is the most important part of the judging process?
I'm not sure of the relevance of you working late and your husband doing what a father should do, but I presume you think that this is out of the ordinary.
Maybe it's time that the viewpoint of how women are perceived needs to be changed by women themselves.
 
MrMan said:
Maybe it's time that the viewpoint of how women are perceived needs to be changed by women themselves.
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Just from a practical perspective. Ive a friend who just told her boss she is pregnant. On a personal level he was happy for her etc... But on a professional level he is fuming that she is going to be off on maternity leave, again (3rd time in 5 years). Its not easy to change a viewpoint when practically speaking its only women who give birth!!

Same applies to interviews. If a young, recently married woman, interviews for a position and so also does a young man, there is some chance in the coming years that she will be off on maternity leave - but there is NO chance the man will. Its biology.

Getting past the actual mechanics of who gives birth. Many women end up being the one to do the creche collections, stay off with a sick child etc... Sometimes its because the mans job is perceived as more important, sometimes its because the mother feels its her 'role' to do so, but whatever the reason, it happens.

So questioning a woman at an interview about whether or not she is married or has children is more loaded than questioning a man about the same thing.
 
Complainer said:
The hint was in the "Agree with Complainer" bit of Vanilla's post.
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But did you not say 'how does having kids make someone unsuitable for a role' whereas Vanilla made the point that such a question would have more of an impact on a woman than a man. Can you see the difference?
 

What your point is missing (in my opinon) is that there never needs to be an interview given or a question asked for a company to realise that a woman may take maternity leave within the next few years if hired, so the fact that she is called in the first place would suggest to me that this isn't a factor when it comes to hiring.
With regard to personal relationships i.e who picks up the kids and collects from the creche, that is completely down to the dynamics of each relationship. If a husbands deems his job more important than his kids then it says more about him than men in general.

Going back to the question, it just doesn't stack up that it is more loaded for one than the other.
 
MrMan said:
But did you not say 'how does having kids make someone unsuitable for a role' whereas Vanilla made the point that such a question would have more of an impact on a woman than a man. Can you see the difference?
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I can see two people "who made pretty-much the same point" like I pointed out above.
 

I dont think thats true MrMan. A lot of CVs dont have age/marital status on them. If during an interview an interviewer asks a woman whether or not she is married/has kids - s/he is also figuring the chances of maternity leave. If a woman already has 3 kids, the youngest of which is 10, then she is less likely to go on maternity leave than a woman who has just married but has no children. You wont know any of that unless you ask at an interview.

So it is a more loaded question - which is why there are guidelines in place, to avoid people being put into an awkward spot.

Just as an aside - one NEVER knows why someone is turned down after an interview. I remember a friend telling me he had interviewed 10 people for a particular role and he turned down the most qualified person - because she was very overweight. In his opinion he felt that her weight would prevent her from doing the job as efficiently as someone fitter as it involved quite a bit of running about, up and down stairs etc... He also felt that someone with that amount of weight would be more prone to sick days etc... Unfair maybe, but thats the decision he made.

I also know a girl who was waiting for a bus back to dublin after interviewing in a company in kildare and the guy who interviewed her came along and offered her a lift back, which she accepted. During the lift he asked her out on a date. She was FUMING. She was offered the job but felt she couldnt possibly take it after he'd asked her out (she had said no).

So all sorts of 'human' stuff happens with interviewers, its just that a lot of it cannot be proven. You might feel you didnt get the job because you were a 30 year old just married woman, well maybe so, but maybe you didnt get it because there was a better candidate, you didnt sell yourself well, or you were just unlucky that day?
 
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