Hello everyone! I
apologize for the delay in getting a blog out. I've been really swamped here the past few weeks and honestly I’ve been
kind of down. You see… My baby went to
Kindergarten last week. On the outside I
was so happy for her.
Ava was absolutely radiant and she was so excited. It was great for her and I’m just so happy
that she is having a great time. Then to
add insult to injury she lost her first tooth!
Seriously, at this rate she is going to be driving next week. I can’t take it.
 |
| If putting the forcing the teeth back in would stop her from growing up I would totally do it! |
Now that I’m done crying, I’ll get down to business. One of my best friends called me the other
day to tell me about a terrible interview he had. There were many reasons why it went poorly
but one of them really stuck out to me.
My friend walked into the interview, they exchanged hello’s and sat
down. Then, the first question out
of the interviewer’s mouth was:
“Before we talk about
your skills, why don’t you tell me about your personal life? Are you married? Any kids?”
I’m sure all of you HR people are shuddering right now. However, this happens more often then you
would think. Before I go into how to answer questions like
this let’s first talk about why they are illegal and why people ask them. First of all let me state that I’m not real
comfortable with the term “illegal interview questions” – This is a term I hear
thrown out a lot. However, I think that
a better term would be inappropriate interview questions. The fact of the matter is that these
questions aren’t necessarily illegal to ask.
However, it can be illegal to use the information gleaned from the
answers in a hiring decision. Regardless
– its just semantics.
So…why do people ask these questions? I’m sure that somewhere there is some evil
hiring manager that likes to find out if someone is part of a protected class
so that they can discriminate against them – there are a lot of bad people in
this world. However, in most cases I
think that the interviewer is just trying to be nice and break the ice. They don’t mean any ill will and they
certainly aren’t trying to discriminate.
How do you answer?
First things first – you should be prepared for this
situation. Don’t start acting weird,
insulted or anything else that could make the interviewer feel awkward. This is a one way ticket to the no pile. Secondly, don’t point out that the question
makes you uncomfortable or that it is illegal.
Doing this will cause the same amount of damage. No kidding here – I once had someone tell the
interview “That’s an illegal question and I’m not answering it!” This set the tone for the entire interview
and there was no second interview.
Below are two ways you can answer:
1. Give an answer that gives non-defining
information
In most cases I really suggest having an answer prepared
that takes care of this situation. It
should be something that goes like this:
“Thanks for
asking! I’ve got a wonderful family that
is supporting me in this career search and I can’t wait to learn more about
this job!”
There you go – simple, polite and moves things along. Nothing to see here folks. In most cases this is all you really need to
do.
2. Jump in Headfirst
However, there are some that are very comfortable sharing
about their family life. Perhaps you are
in sales and you need to sell yourself to be successful. Maybe you are interviewing for something
where your awesome family dynamic is relevant to the position. What do you do then?
In this case – share, share a lot and do it with a
smile. Also be prepared to tell people
why this makes you great. Finally ask a
question at the end to turn it into a conversation. Remember, everything you share here opens you
up to problems. Maybe the employer
believes being a parent means you can’t give 100%. Maybe they don’t like married people. Maybe they worry that religious people can
only work six days a week. So if you are
going to share it can’t be something like:
“I’m married with
three kids and we go to XYZ church in Anytown,
USA.”
This gives no value other than to position yourself as an
average person. Instead go for the gold –
respond like this:
“Well, I’ve been
happily married for seven years and I’ve got three awesome kids. I tell you – parenting was the best thing I ever
did. It really focused me and since
becoming a parent my production has been through the roof. I’m also very active in my church, which I’ve
found to be really helpful in my networking as well as personally
rewarding. How about you? Do you have a family?”
Here you take an awkward question. Make yourself look awesome (to most people –
there are some people out there that don’t like parents, networking and
community service) and give yourself an opportunity to get the interviewer to
talk about themselves. And as I’ve
harped on before – people love to talk about
themselves.
So what do you guys think?
Have you had any other awkward interview questions? Email me at
sthompson@insurance-csg.com or
feel free to leave comments.
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