Ask the Employment Specialist: Difficult Interview Questions – Illegal Questions

Dear Joanna,

I’m in shock. I just came back from an interview for a position as a customer service/order desk clerk position. The interviewer asked me if I had any children, how old they were and if I will be having any more children. I was tongue-tied and offended. I answered him with a “no”. I DO have a family, including a husband and two elementary aged children. I know that these are illegal questions in an interview. I am so turned off that even if I get the job offer, I will refuse it. Please could you advise me in future as to the best way to handle illegal job interview questions at the interview?

Signed – Job Seeker Mothers Beware (JSMB)

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Dear JSMB,

Ouch! Sadly, many job searchers share stories such as yours about discrimination in the labour market. In a recent study at Cornell University, presented by author and HR Manager Cynthia Shapiro, researchers found that during the interview process, mothers were perceived as less committed to work than women without children. This problem is real and age-old.

In the meantime, if the interviewer asks you an illegal question because he or she doesn’t know the law or slips up, continues Shapiro, it is important not only to know your rights, but also to be able to respond to the question with dignity and assertiveness. Shapiro suggests not saying, “That’s illegal and I won’t answer it”, because in saying that you might just have “killed the interview”. Instead, prepare an answer that addresses the genuine concerns that the employer might have. The interviewer may be worried about your flexibility, stability and ability to commit to the demands required for the job; they might be concerned about whether you have child care commitments which will interfere with the job.

Without answering their question directly, I would suggest that you reinforce your commitment to the job and that you do not expect to be sick, late or have family obligations that will get in the way of your work. Stress that in your work history you have always excelled in your position and that personal commitments have never interfered with your work. This way you indicate your willingness to demonstrate your suitability for the job without compromising your rights. You do have the option of answering the question directly, but Shapiro recommends doing everything possible to make the question a non-issue, as it should be.

Such questions are illegal for a reason. If it’s important for you to work for a company that values families and supports parents, then this might not be the company for you. You can assess this, based on how you feel about the tone of the whole interview.  I would keep your parental and family status private when interviewing. You have no obligation to tell the employer; they are hiring you for your skills and experience. Keep focused on the job description and skills, rather than your personal life.

More examples of responses to illegal questions in the interview:

“Are you Married?”

• Assure the employer that you are:
  • well-organized and reliable, and do not expect require time to attend to personal family matters; mention that this has never been an issue in previous jobs
  • professional and punctual
  • if this is true for you, mention your availability to do overtime and travel for the company (if relevant to the job)

 ”How long have you been in Canada? Where are you from?”

• Relate your answer to your knowledge of current Canadian market trends
• Describe your transferable skills confidently
• Relate your ability to learn quickly

Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide how to answer such questions. Weigh the risk of answering a personal question against the consequences of not answering, and make your own decisions.  Know your rights. I suggest that you refer to our October 2011 blog post titled Dealing with Illegal Job Interview Questions, which provides more information about job seeker rights and ways of dealing with this challenge.

All the best with your job search, JSMB. Many job searchers overcome this barrier and I am sure that with the right approach, you will succeed too.

Signed,
Joanna

Ask the Employment Specialist: Answering Difficult Interview Questions –Salary Expectations

Dear Joanna,

I blew it big time. I was at an interview yesterday for an administrative assistant position with a law firm. The human resources manager asked me what my salary expectations were for this exciting full-time position. Needless to say, the amount was not communicated in the job posting much to my sorrow. I responded by asking a question: “What are you willing to pay me?”. That was it. The interview was over, and so was my candidacy. I felt trapped and I felt tricked.

Please could you give me some advice as to how to respond effectively and appropriately to this difficult question.

Signed: Tricked and Trapped (TAT)

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Dear TAT,

This is definitely a tricky question to answer. It’s almost as if you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. If you give a salary which is too high, you may ruin your chances to be considered; if you give a number which is too low, the hiring manager may think you aren’t qualified. Don’t feel so badly. According to Cynthia Shapiro in What Does Somebody Have to Do to Get a Job Around Here?: 44 Insider Secrets That Will Get You Hired (2008),  “gone are the days of the straightforward interview designed to allow you talk about your  skills and qualifications” (p. 74). Today’s interview, she continues, is designed to help the recruiter find out if you can do the job, as well as what kind of person you are and if you have potential to cause the company any problems. Asking a candidate to state their salary expectations is a question which definitely falls under this category.

There are two suggested ways to respond to this question at the interview. The first one is to change the priorities by stating “My priority is to find a growing, successful company where I can make a contribution to and continue to learn and grow and practice my profession. I want to be compensated, but is not the most important thing for me. I am flexible”.

The other (and arguably, better) strategy is to do your research on the internet on current salaries and be prepared to respond with a reasonable range, such as: “I have done my research and I understand that this position as an administrative assistant would pay between $30,000 – $40,000″. The JVS Toronto Employment Counsellors who wrote our Interview Workshop manual recommend that if you wish to show your eagerness for the position, you may add, “But I’m flexible.” Some suggested websites are Payscale, Salary.com and Monster Salary Centre. LinkedIn can also be another source for compensation information. Be careful with the data, because it is not always accurate. Salaries vary in terms of location, time and job, and the ranges are wide. Another suggestion is to locate an employee in the firm and ask about salary range (people won’t want to disclose their salary, but most are willing to share a range).

Last but not least, Employment Counsellor and the editor of this blog, Karin Lewis, has some advice for responding to the salary expectations in the cover letter. “I think job searchers should not specify their expectations in the cover letter because they don’t know enough about the job and what it entails. It means limiting their ability to negotiate in the interview. I suggest clients write: Regarding salary expectations, I am flexible and open to discussing specifics at the Interview“, or  – probably better — propose a wide salary range and express openness to be flexible.”

TAT, I am sure you will get another interview as it seems like your resume is working and you will have plenty of opportunities to prepare an answer to the salary question which the hiring person will want to hear.

Finally, remember not to mention money or salary expectations in the interview unless you are asked by the interviewer!  (It is acceptable, however, to ask about when salary will be discussed, but make sure to keep that question to the end of the interviewing process).

Signed,
Joanna

Ask the Employment Specialist: Answering difficult interview questions — discussing weaknesses

Dear Joanna,

I am an inventory manager with over 10 years experience in purchasing and inventory management in a manufacturing company.

I am happy to report that I am getting lots of interviews for relevant positions, but have always been stumped on the question from the hiring Human Resources staff which requires me to identify and present my weakness. Sometimes I’m asked for a couple of examples even!  It can be asked in numerous ways, but the most popular question I have experienced is “What is your biggest weakness?” or “What would you like to improve about yourself”? But, Joanna – I HAVE NO WEAKNESSES!!! How can I respond to this crazy question so that I won’t look bad in the eyes of the interviewer. I know that I must have an answer ready to go.

Please could you give me suggestions as to how to respond to this question in a professional, yet honest fashion. Thanks so much.

Signed by: Worried about my Weakness (WAW)

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Dear WAW,

Great question. I get asked this all the time from our job seekers at JVS Toronto.

According to Cynthia Shapiro in her fantastic book, What Does Somebody Have to Do to Get a Job Around Here?: 44 Insider Secrets That Will Get You Hired (2008), “interviewers will trick you into sharing information that is not in your best interest”. Gone are the days of the straight-forward interview that allow you to talk about your skills and qualifications, she continues. Shapiro clarifies that for a higher paying position, the interviewer might even ask for your three biggest weaknesses. For your question, I will stick with one weakness question and response which Shapiro defines as a “classic trick question”.

The best approach is to share an issue which you have become aware of, one that you’re already began improving. Share how you did it. Your response should show the interviewer that you are willing to accept feedback and criticism, as well as always looking to learn from it. You want to indicate that you are committed to improving your workplace skills. Focus on a skill you have successfully improved; share an example with a happy ending, Shapiro recommends.

Fellow blogger and Employment Counsellor, Karin Lewis and I recommend the following 3-step structure to creating and presenting a response to this question:

Part 1 – identify a specific experience in your past work history and a skill with which you needed help

Example: I’m always looking to improve, learn and grow. About 6 years ago, when I first started working as a job developer at JVS Toronto with people with disabilities, my manager told me that I needed help with organizing my time, to find a balance between my job coaching and job development duties, as well as all the administration work I needed to do. I appreciated my manager telling me about this. Her feedback really helped me.

Part 2 – Explain a concrete solution, strategy or technique which helped you overcome this weakness (i.e. organizational skills or time management – you could use both)

Example: So, after brainstorming solutions with my manager, she recommended that I learn how to use Microsoft Outlook, which is an effective system to organize my time. I learned to input all my activities with the clients. It has been a very useful tool, which has helped me work so much more efficiently.

Part 3 – Describe the impact of the solution (to show a positive ending to the story)

Example:  Now in my work and in any of my future work situations, I know that I can always be organized, and stay on top of my work so that the clients don’t fall between the cracks. I have a lot less stress balancing the different parts of my job.

So, WAW, I strongly advise you to prepare and practice your answers to this and all the other typical general, situational and behavioural questions which interviewers might throw at you in the interview. To practice, ask your employment counsellor for a mock interview.

Good luck with one of the most challenging interview questions in the world!

Best regards,

Joanna

Ask the Employment Specialist: Explaining bad job endings to interviewers

We are excited to introduce a brand new feature: Joanna Samuels, our highly experienced Workforce Specialist Team Lead will be collecting questions from job searchers and putting them to our Employment Specialists to give you the best answers possible. Here’s our first installation in Ask an Employment Specialist. We hope you find it useful and would LOVE your feedback and questions (if you would like to ask a question, you will find our contact email at the end of this post).

Dear Employment Specialist,

I was recently fired from my job as a customer service representative/receptionist at a large wholesale supplier company.

I’m still in shock but have to jump back on the horse and overcome my fears of working in another job in my field which I love. So, I’m busy applying for work and started to have both telephone and face-to-face interviews (at least the resume is working!).

When the interviewer inquires about the reason I’m no longer at my last job, I am stumped with a suitable response which will not be used against me and exclude me from being hired! Please could you give me some suggestions.

Signed,
Furiously Fired and Fearful

Dear FFF,

This is an excellent question, which I am often asked.  Coaching job seekers on how answer difficult questions, so to help them eventually get that job offer, is part of what employment specialists do.

From experience, I have found that when answering such a challenging question, honesty is the best policy. You have to figure out an answer which you can share comfortably, and make sure you sound articulate and stay calm, confident and clear. As the old saying goes “it’s not what you say; it’s how you say it“.

We always recommend that interviewees put themselves in the interviewer’s shoes, and read between the lines of the interview questions. When an employer asks “Why did you leave your last job?”, they are probably really thinking: “Are you going to bring me headaches? Do you have trouble getting along with people? Were you fired or did you quit? Did you have difficulties in your last position which may affect your ability to do the job here?”

Considering these concerns of employers, here are some suggested scripts to respond to such questions about your past job:

One helpful suggestion came from Jeannette Mazzocato, one of our experienced JVS Employment Counsellors, who recommended this script: 

“I was at my last job for a long time. I loved the work and the team. However I had a situation and  I recognize that I did some mistakes. I took this as an invaluable opportunity to learn and grow. I acknowledge that I was wrong. The company is a great company and they do great work. I would like to move forward and find work in my field which uses my experience, skills, passions and education, and find a company where I can make a contribution, grow and continue to learn”.

I also consulted with Steffen Allen, a Senior Recruiter at Zylog Systems (Canada) Ltd., a leading IT and Engineering consulting and staffing firm. Steffen is a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in corporate recruitment and consulting for Fortune 500 companies around the world.

Steffen suggests that it is important to keep positive, to “turn a negative into a positive”, and recommends the following possible scripts:

“My job description changed. I was put into a new role which I could not do. I didn’t have the skills or experience to perform the new position. The learning curve was too steep for me. So, both  I and the company parted ways on good terms. I took this as an opportunity to understand what skills I need to learn and have enrolled in a course to gain those skills for future opportunities.”

“The company was bought out and was going in another direction. There was a new management which took over. They had different goals than mine. So we parted ways on good terms.”

“The company’s goals changed and were not aligned with my goals. I parted ways on good terms with the management.”

The bottom line: if you are confronted in an interview with a difficult question about a past job, the best thing you can do is be prepared with an honest and responsible answer. Find a way to describe what happened that does not say anything negative about the former employer, and focuses instead on moving forward.

Good luck with your job search, FFF. I am sure that with some careful preparation, you will succeed in getting back onto the job market soon!

Regards,
Joanna

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References:

Fatt, J. (1999). It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it – Nonverbal communication. Communication World, June-July, 1999

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