On Thu, 7 Feb 2002, Audra Oliver wrote:

> I believe that someone recently posted to the list that while some questions may raise concerns about your hiring practices, it is legal to ask almost anything in an interview.  You simply need to make sure that you do not use the response to a "questionable question" to discriminate against the candidate on illegal grounds.   These are generally questions that it is wiser to avoid but they are not illegal.

===========================

I'm with Audra on this. Quite a few years ago the museum service I was
then directing had a near disaster when a local politician representing
the governing committee on the selection board asked the first interviewee
about family, and then about her child care arrangements.  After reading
the Riot Act to the Councillor, it was agreed that to try to salvage the
situation I should ask the four male candidates the same improper questions
- so that in the even of complaint we could at least say that we had
treated female and male applicant equally.  At the end of the day we
agreed that it was worth doing not only for that reason, but to see the
utterly startled looks on the face of the male candidates when asked such
questions!


Patrick Boylan

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