illegal job questions

Gordon_Hose

SandP wrote: »

Some years ago I was being interviewed for an HR Manager position for a large well known hotel chain. The interviewer asked me whether I was married, whether my wife worked and how many cars we had. When I replied "one" he said - and I quote verbatum - "well how's the little woman going to get to work if you get this job?" At that point I decided that the job was definitely not for me!

:eek: some people are so far detached from reality it's unbelievable!

SHIPSHAPE

Ihatecameron wrote: »

And asking about convictions that are spent is a waste of time as you do not have to disclose that information.

Yes they can ask about spent convictions depending upon certain factors.

This retail position may involve regular contact with children, for example.

Ihatecameron

SHIPSHAPE wrote: »

Yes they can ask about spent convictions depending upon certain factors.

This retail position may involve regular contact with children, for example.

You are behind a till serving customers in a shop, where does the actual contact take place?

paddedjohn

thelawnet wrote: »

my wife is filling out an application for a retail position, some of the questions:

do you have any disability, condition or allergy for which any special arrangement will need to be made?

do you have any regular/recurring ailments which may incur you not being fit for work at any time?

do you have young children/dependant relatives who may also cause problems affecting your availability for work?

have you ever been convicted of a criminal offence, including spent convictions? Yes/no

are these illegal questions?

(below the criminal offence question it adds, somewhat obscurely, that you may omit to answer the question due to the rehabilitation of offenders act, but it seems to me that omitting to answer the question is likely to cause aspersions to be cast)

Where is the harm in answering any of these questions?
To be honest if these questions are against the law then the law is an !!!, the country is going to the dogs.
If it was me interviewing someone for a job i would want to know, do i need to adapt the work place in anyway to help the employee hence question 1, if they would be off ill every other week hence question 2, can they work weekends or evenings hence question 3, can i trust them with my business and customers question 4.

paddedjohn

paddedjohn wrote: »

Where is the harm in answering any of these questions?
To be honest if these questions are against the law then the law is an !!!, the country is going to the dogs.
If it was me interviewing someone for a job i would want to know, do i need to adapt the work place in anyway to help the employee hence question 1, if they would be off ill every other week hence question 2, can they work weekends or evenings hence question 3, can i trust them with my business and customers question 4.

WHY HAVE I BEEN CENSORED ABOVE? I ONLY SAID A S S, AS IN DONKEY!:p

NouveauRiche

Maybe I'm being a bit of a Pollyanna over this, but..........the info about needing time off for family or health reasons might be useful with regards to: flexibility of shifts, availability for extra hours etc.

Also, in some retail jobs, one person 'missing' from a team would have more impact than others. (Customer services for instance only tend to have one assistant on the counter.)

I could be quite wrong of course.........they might just be nosey beggars!

AnonymousForObviousReason

paddedjohn wrote: »

WHY HAVE I BEEN CENSORED ABOVE? I ONLY SAID A S S, AS IN DONKEY!:p

Because that's not PC they prefer to be called horse/donkey hybrids, get with the times it's 2011 not 1911.


As for the questions about illegality, the real point is that it opens the company up to claims of discrimination if they are not very careful. I know our applications ask for Ethnicity, Gender, Disabilities, etc but this section was removed by the HR department before the manager got to review the anonymised applications - this was done for tracking to check we weren't discriminating.

shikoku

AnonymousForObviousReason wrote: »

our applications ask for Ethnicity, Gender, Disabilities, etc but this section was removed by the HR department before the manager got to review the anonymised applications - this was done for tracking to check we weren't discriminating.

And of course the candidate cannot be required to answer this section.

cgk1

paddedjohn wrote: »

Where is the harm in answering any of these questions?
To be honest if these questions are against the law then the law is an !!!, the country is going to the dogs.
If it was me interviewing someone for a job i would want to know, do i need to adapt the work place in anyway to help the employee hence question 1, if they would be off ill every other week hence question 2, can they work weekends or evenings hence question 3, can i trust them with my business and customers question 4.

But that's irrelevant to the actual role - the reason why you are not allow to ask is to stop you rejecting a suitable candidate simply because you don't want to adjust (maybe because of cost, maybe because of prejudice). Under the new system, if you accepted a candidate and then found out about a health issue, it would then be very difficult for you to change your mind.

Ihatecameron

As for the questions about illegality, the real point is that it opens the company up to claims of discrimination if they are not very careful.

Exactly, companies can be sued. You are not allowed to ask health related questions during or prior to interview, but you can ask them what you like after you have offered them the job.