4 ms·
> [...] most of the people who apply don't have kids. how do you know if you don't ask?
by jsrn 18y ago
> [...] most of the people who apply don't have kids.
how do you know if you don't ask?
- pg 18y agoTrue, I'm guessing based on the demographic similarity between the people we accept (whose circumstances I do eventually learn about) and applicants as a whole. But the median applicant does seem to be about the same as the median company we fund: a pair of guys about 25 years old.
- tptacek 18y agoNot for nothing, but for a hiring manager, asking this question is a firing offense. So is age, marital status, religion, or even any question about place of residence apart from "are you capable of being on-site during core hours". From a lot of unfortunate experience: tech people suck at following these rules.
- petercooper 18y agoIt's more unfortunate that a few bad apples in the past have made these laws necessary in the first place. Asking someone about their life is hardly a crime, but our governments seem to have no problem making it so. Score another point against a good employer / employee relationship.
- tptacek 18y agoHow could it possibly be relevant to your hiring decision how old someone is, or what neighborhood they live in?
- petercooper 18y agoYou can guess someone's age within a few years at an interview if you wanted to discriminate, so blocking a mention of age is naive. You could also work it out in most cases from the dates given on the resume (unless it becomes illegal to learn about a candidate's education or work history - which wouldn't surprise me to be honest). You could see what neighborhood someone lives in because that will also be typically included on a resume too. Why would you hire someone who can't even put their street address on their resume? Sure, a street address doesn't have much significance to /most/ hiring decisions, although if you knew a candidate would have a 100 mile commute each day, choosing someone who lived around the corner would make a lot of sense if the job required call-out or easy access to the office. And so it goes. You'll see someone's race at interview. You can probably even figure out if someone's married (presence of a ring). It seems crazy to make it illegal to ask these questions. Instead, it should be law that it's optional for the candidate to ANSWER them.
- ks 18y ago> Instead, it should be law that it's optional for the candidate to ANSWER them. Isn't every question optional? It's not like you go to jail if you don't answer a question. It's not a good strategy, but AFAIK it is legal
- jcl 18y agoInstead, it should be law that it's optional for the candidate to ANSWER them. That opens another can of worms. Any refusal to answer implies something to hide, which would be an immediate red flag.
- tptacek 18y agoThis line of reasoning seems nonsensical. There are no non-optional interview questions. But all questions asked during an interview are used to discriminate between candidates; that's the point of an interview. How do you ask a candidate what their age is without discriminating based on age? If you're not discriminating on age, why on earth would you ask the question?
- crisachow14 18y agoWell, true but how offensive is it really if you say that you would rather not say how old you are? I mean, women do it all the time.
- tptacek 18y agoYou are totally begging the question. If you have somebody's name, you can "ask" the Internet about their age, sex, religion, or race. That's illegal too. What I'm asking is, one reasonable person to another, what possible reason could you have for wanting to know the age of an applicant? It is legal to ask if a candidate can legally work full time for you. Why would you ask anything more?
- jcl 18y agoIt's been noted in the past that Y Combinator in fact does ask for founders' ages. Presumably it can skirt the hiring laws because it is funding a company, not employing people.