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Job Interviews

Questions employers cannot ask

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:20

A recent discussion on our sister site Skills-Universe (www.skills-universe.com) tackled the topic of questions an employer cannot ask during a job interview.

Many questions are off-limit for HR professionals and their line managers in the interview situation mainly because of their lack of relevance to the requirements of a job.

Here’s a refresher course on some of these questions that can be considered illegal if asked for recruitment and selection purposes.

Areas to steer clear of relate to:

1. Age

Age should not be of relevance in hiring an individual

2. Marital status

Again, marital status should not affect one’s ability to perform a job. Questions regarding marital status can be misconstrued as sexual harassment.

3. Children and child care planning

Children and one’s personal life should not affect one’s ability to perform a job.

4. Personal health

Such questions are off-limits unless, perfect health is an inherent requirement of the job e.g. an airline pilot should have good (or correctable to 20/20) vision in order to fly an airplane.

5. Ethnicity

Ethnicity holds no value to an individual’s employability or ability to perform a job.

6. Sexual preference

Questions around sexual preference count as sexual discrimination.

7. Disabilities

According to South African Labour Law, disability is not grounds for fair dismissal. It cannot be used as a form of discrimination in the hiring process.

8. Arrest record

Questions around one’s criminal record can only be asked in interviews where fraud and embezzlement are possible through the role, e.g. in the financial and banking industries. Even in these cases, the question has to be phrased to relate directly to fraud and embezzlement. Other records relating to one’s traffic fines for example are not relevant and need not be answered.

9. Personal information

The purpose of a job interview is to ascertain if an individual can perform the inherent requirements of a particular job. Any personal information that does not relate to the job is therefore off limits.

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