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Interesting that various people here are horrified by restrictions on what you can ask in an interview. In the UK there are various restrictions on what you are

Interesting that various people here are horrified by restrictions on what you can ask in an interview. In the UK there are various restrictions on what you are allowed to ask, such as a candidates age. Actually the main risk to a business from this is a careless interviewer asking by mistake. An enlightened employer should not find any of this restricting at all. All of the worst interviewers I have faced have always asked about my salary, and recruitment consultants always do (they also tend to lie about your expectations to potential employers in order to get interviews). It is a deliberate attempt to screw you down and is totally unnecessary.

JoshTriplett 10y ago
> In the UK there are various restrictions on what you are allowed to ask, such as a candidates age. In the US, asking the question isn't itself illegal, but it's an incredibly bad idea to ask, because discriminating based on the answer is illegal.
- abduhl 10y ago
  It's only illegal if they can prove that you discriminated based on their age. This is why companies never tell a prospective hire why they've declined to hire them, instead they just tell them that it's a poor culture fit. Poor culture fits aren't illegal, so you can feel safe not hiring based on culture. Especially if the part of their culture that doesn't fit is a protected class.
  - jimnotgym 10y ago
    Again, its only an issue for bad companies, with bad employment practices. The rest of us will be unaffected by the restriction
    - tabeth 10y ago
      > Again, its only an issue for bad companies, with bad employment practices. The rest of us will be unaffected by the restriction Don't you feel that this attitude is dismissive?
      - jimnotgym 10y ago
        I'm hiring right now, into a critical role for me. I have lots of questions for new candidates about what they were doing before at previous employers. However I will not feel the need to ask what they are paid. I have been asked it on several occasions and every time it was an attempt to pay me less than the company had advertised for the role. I can think of so many reasons why someone's pay may have been out of step with their role in the past, and none of it is relevant to how I wish to inventivise them now. So no I don't think it is dismissive
  - JoshTriplett 10y ago
    > It's only illegal if they can prove that you discriminated based on their age. If at any time during the interview the employer asks the candidate's age (or any other protected information), the candidate will have a much easier time making a case for that.
    - jimnotgym 10y ago
      On the other hand candidates in the UK (at least) are in the habit of putting dates on their CV for the major events in their life, like school leaving and Uni graduation...so age is kinda obvious. It is of course OK to seek candidates that are 'early in their careers', as long as you wouldn't turn away an inexperienced older person (and I have employed career changers who were evidently much older than other candidates). Again it is no issue for good employers
      - JoshTriplett 10y ago
        > On the other hand candidates in the UK (at least) are in the habit of putting dates on their CV for the major events in their life, like school leaving and Uni graduation...so age is kinda obvious. True, at least in the most common case. A name on a CV can also suggest nationality and gender, and multiple studies have shown that the name on a CV alone can significantly change the response to an otherwise identical CV.
gambiting 10y ago
I personally know of a case where someone got rejected because they asked for too much compared to his previous salary, even though the person who got hired was offered more money(but it was a smaller increase percentage wise over his previous job). Basically guy was brilliant in the interview, engineering team said they want him, but HR rejected him because he said he wants 80k, while he was making 60k previously(he worked outside of London before). HR instead hired a guy who interviewed much worse, but he only asked for an increase of 5k(from 90k to 95k).
- pmiller2 10y ago
  > HR instead hired.... Well, there's the problem right there. HR should only have relatively minimal input into the hiring process, unless it's hiring someone in HR. Fail a background check, and I can understand HR vetoing a hire; asking for too much salary should be between the candidate, the hiring manager and their available budget.
- wutbrodo 10y ago
  Wow, that HR sounds utterly incompetent.
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    That HR sounds like all HR departments I have ever had anything to do with.
    - wutbrodo 10y ago
      Yeesh, that's super depressing. Not that I know anything about running HR departments, but that betrays such basic inability to uh, think that I can't really imagine how that could be ubiquitous.
      - danieltillett 10y ago
        I really think HR is a job that nobody should ever do full time. It should be a responsibility that is only ever allocated to someone who has another job to do - ideally someone who has to deal personally with the consequences of HR idiocracy.

JoshTriplett 10y ago

> In the UK there are various restrictions on what you are allowed to ask, such as a candidates age. In the US, asking the question isn't itself illegal, but it's an incredibly bad idea to ask, because discriminating based on the answer is illegal.

abduhl 10y ago
It's only illegal if they can prove that you discriminated based on their age. This is why companies never tell a prospective hire why they've declined to hire them, instead they just tell them that it's a poor culture fit. Poor culture fits aren't illegal, so you can feel safe not hiring based on culture. Especially if the part of their culture that doesn't fit is a protected class.
- jimnotgym 10y ago
  Again, its only an issue for bad companies, with bad employment practices. The rest of us will be unaffected by the restriction
  - tabeth 10y ago
    > Again, its only an issue for bad companies, with bad employment practices. The rest of us will be unaffected by the restriction Don't you feel that this attitude is dismissive?
    - jimnotgym 10y ago
      I'm hiring right now, into a critical role for me. I have lots of questions for new candidates about what they were doing before at previous employers. However I will not feel the need to ask what they are paid. I have been asked it on several occasions and every time it was an attempt to pay me less than the company had advertised for the role. I can think of so many reasons why someone's pay may have been out of step with their role in the past, and none of it is relevant to how I wish to inventivise them now. So no I don't think it is dismissive
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  > It's only illegal if they can prove that you discriminated based on their age. If at any time during the interview the employer asks the candidate's age (or any other protected information), the candidate will have a much easier time making a case for that.
  - jimnotgym 10y ago
    On the other hand candidates in the UK (at least) are in the habit of putting dates on their CV for the major events in their life, like school leaving and Uni graduation...so age is kinda obvious. It is of course OK to seek candidates that are 'early in their careers', as long as you wouldn't turn away an inexperienced older person (and I have employed career changers who were evidently much older than other candidates). Again it is no issue for good employers
    - JoshTriplett 10y ago
      > On the other hand candidates in the UK (at least) are in the habit of putting dates on their CV for the major events in their life, like school leaving and Uni graduation...so age is kinda obvious. True, at least in the most common case. A name on a CV can also suggest nationality and gender, and multiple studies have shown that the name on a CV alone can significantly change the response to an otherwise identical CV.

gambiting 10y ago

I personally know of a case where someone got rejected because they asked for too much compared to his previous salary, even though the person who got hired was offered more money(but it was a smaller increase percentage wise over his previous job). Basically guy was brilliant in the interview, engineering team said they want him, but HR rejected him because he said he wants 80k, while he was making 60k previously(he worked outside of London before). HR instead hired a guy who interviewed much worse, but he only asked for an increase of 5k(from 90k to 95k).

pmiller2 10y ago
> HR instead hired.... Well, there's the problem right there. HR should only have relatively minimal input into the hiring process, unless it's hiring someone in HR. Fail a background check, and I can understand HR vetoing a hire; asking for too much salary should be between the candidate, the hiring manager and their available budget.
wutbrodo 10y ago
Wow, that HR sounds utterly incompetent.
- danieltillett 10y ago
  That HR sounds like all HR departments I have ever had anything to do with.
  - wutbrodo 10y ago
    Yeesh, that's super depressing. Not that I know anything about running HR departments, but that betrays such basic inability to uh, think that I can't really imagine how that could be ubiquitous.
    - danieltillett 10y ago
      I really think HR is a job that nobody should ever do full time. It should be a responsibility that is only ever allocated to someone who has another job to do - ideally someone who has to deal personally with the consequences of HR idiocracy.