Employment Related Legal Services

When a business interviews a prospective job candidate, it is critical that the interviewer ask questions that are limited to fitness to perform essential job function.  Untrained interviewers too often get into trouble when they ask “ice breaker” types of questions when trying to establish a personal connection. CareerBuilder found that 20% of hiring managers reported asking questions that may have violated the law. While the question may be asked innocently, a candidate may find it offensive and discriminatory. 

Questions like “where are you from?”, “tell me about your family?” or “what churches have you tried in the area?” can be highly offensive to a candidate because they set up an opportunity to discriminate based on national origin, marital status, or religion.  Better questions may be: “are you eligible to work in the United States?”; “when working on a special project, are you available to shift your work schedule to come in earlier or stay later?”

We encourage clients to start with a written job description that lists: essential job functions, competencies, physical demands, communication requirements, and travel demands. The interviewer can then formulate questions based on the job description.  It is a best practice to run the questions by someone trained or experienced in the legal requirements.  Then we recommend asking the same questions to all candidates and taking notes on the answers. That way, the interviewer can discuss findings and recommendations with other interviewers, or use the notes to score all the candidates.

For most businesses, the greatest challenge is getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus.  Many will have the education and experience to do the job.  However, discerning which candidates will take you from good to great can mean all the difference.  However, before you get there, you must avoid the landmines which can blow up an interview.