Illegal Job Interview Questions and How to Handle Them

Interviewers and interviewees alike are often unaware that certain questions asked during a job interview are considered illegal questions. Now by "illegal", it doesn't mean that someone will get arrested for asking such a question, but it does mean that the interviewee is not required to answer it to be considered for the job. The reason why these questions are considered illegal is to protect candidates from being discriminated against when applying for a job. These questions were made illegal as part of the Americans with Disability Act. In this article, we'll cover what the illegal questions are, why they're asked and how to respond.

Illegal questions can be worded hundreds of ways but here are some general guidelines for determining whether a question is considered illegal. Questions about age, race, religion and sexual orientation are considered illegal. Questions about your family life such as whether you're married, have kids or are in a relationship are also considered illegal. Additionally, questions about political beliefs and affiliations, country of origin and US citizenship are considered illegal. A good rule of thumb is that any question of a personal nature which is unrelated to the position you're interviewing for could be illegal.

So why do people ask illegal questions? For the most part, the interviewer doesn't realize that he or she is asking an illegal question. Many companies fail to train their employees in the process of interviewing and even companies that do train may have neglected to include illegal questions as a topic. When this happens, the interviewer may even have good intentions - such as asking the interviewee about his or her family in an effort to break the ice and relax the candidate. In other cases, the interviewer is looking for something in common with in the interviewee (again to relax the candidate).