
Ask HN: Can companies ask for private info before any interview/offer? - mingodad
We are talking about abusive privacy issues that several agents in our society are practising, some countries have laws regulating some issues like what a company can ask for a job applicant.<p>Today I received an email inviting to participate in the selection process for a company that praise privacy in it&#x27;s main product, but surprisingly it doesn&#x27;t seems to apply the same in it&#x27;s internal workflow, for example see what they ask in their invitation (the company listed it&#x27;s offer here on HN https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19055166 ):
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11thEarlOfMar
For 2019, it is no longer legal to ask for salary history in California.
Applicants may volunteer it and prospective employers may ask for the salary
the applicant is looking for, but not past salary, either of the applicant or
reference checks.

~~~
extra88
That also became the law in Massachusetts in 2018.

[https://www.mass.gov/service-details/learn-more-details-
abou...](https://www.mass.gov/service-details/learn-more-details-about-the-
massachusetts-equal-pay-act#other-key-provisions)

~~~
wlesieutre
Connecticut's went into effect last month

[https://www.lawandtheworkplace.com/2018/05/connecticut-
enact...](https://www.lawandtheworkplace.com/2018/05/connecticut-enacts-
salary-history-inquiry-law/)

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clubm8
I recently appliedm for a job where the demographic questions of gender and
hispanic origin had no opt out - I had to mark male or female. It's my
understanding that's not legal, but what is my recourse aside from ending the
application process early? Realistically even if I wanted to find a lawyer
who'd take the case on, any future employers would be able to see the court
records that I sued a potential job in a Google search and I doubt the payoff
would be enough to retire on.

~~~
ta405349
Of course you can't sue them and get enough money to retire on. They didn't
destroy your life, they had a misconfigured form on their damn website.

Send them an email, "I recently used your website and it appeared that several
demographic questions did not have "Prefer Not To Say"/"No Answer" options,
which I am used to seeing. I think these are fair to people who do not wish to
provide that information at that time, and have understood opt-out options
might even be required by anti-discrimination law. I wanted to let you know
about this concern and hope you can fix it."

Do it from a throwaway email if you are particularly paranoid.

~~~
clubm8
>Of course you can't sue them and get enough money to retire on. They didn't
destroy your life, they had a misconfigured form on their damn website.

Most HR systems default to allowing a decline due to it being a legal
requirement. I spoke to someone I know who worked HR in the valley for years -
it requires quite a bit of effort to override that.

So the issue isn't so much a minor mistake, it's purposefully reconfiguring a
system in an illegal manner to aid discrimination.

(And it is absolutely illegal to refuse to accept an application without this
information)

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meganpex
Thought I would chime in with the CA laws. It's important to note that CA has
some of the strictest employment laws in the US surrounding protected classes
and more recently the notion of contractors and what's allowed there.

Some people have said it's perfectly legal to ask, and it most certainly is
not. Some things may naturally come up in conversation in an interview but if
they are specifically asking in writing, and/or in their application process
that is illegal. Like others said, you might not get millions in a lawsuit,
but depending on what state you're in, it wouldn't be hard to find a lawyer to
take a case like this.

-Age: employers can't ask anything in the application or in the interview process that would indicate age. So an overt question of DOB is completely illegal as are any questions like "what years did you attend university?" or "how old were you when youtube became popular" all are questions that could indicate age. -Citizenship: it is illegal to ask a candidate PRE OFFER what country their citizenship is in. But they are perfectly fine asking you "Are you legally authorized to work in the United States" -Marital status: It is illegal to ask “Are you married?” “Have you been married?” The only thing marital status related that's okay to ask is if applicant has a spouse or child that is currently employed by the company. -Copy of your passport: Absolutely not legal pre offer! No employer can require an applicant to produce employment authorization documents prior to hire. -IBAN: Again, not allowed pre-offer. It's touchy to even ask for this info post-offer but nonetheless pre-offer is certainly not legal.

There are a ton of other protected classes in CA (that are also protected in
the rest of the US in different ways/shapes/forms).

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ryandrake
A few years back, I remember being on my way out of what I thought was a
pretty successful interview with a very well known (CEO seems to be on the
front page of HN every week) U.S. Silicon Valley company. The interview itself
was professional and by-the-book. While the H.R. rep was walking me to the
front lobby area, she was making small talk and eventually asked something
along the lines of "So, are you married? Have any kids?" I was shocked to say
the least, and mustered up "You know, I don't think you're allowed to ask that
question." I mean, she's in H.R. If anyone in the company should know what to
ask and what not to it's her. Never got an offer, and always kind of wondered
if my push-back might have been part of it.

~~~
bluetidepro
Idk. Personally, you even said it yourself above, that just seems like it was
honest/genuine “small talk.” It could have totally been just that and nothing
more. I wouldn’t jump right to “invasion of privacy” if someone asked me that.
To me, those don’t seem like invasive questions. Same thing I’d imagine to
hear from any random stranger at a work event, for example. Pretty basic
boilerplate “get to know ya/small talk” questions, besides the ol’ “so, this
weather huh?!” Haha Maybe I’m just being optimistic that not everyone in tech
is evil, with an agenda? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
pertymcpert
It’s incredibly stupid for HR to ask that. We had training from HR so we
didn’t even unintentionally ask questions during small talk they could
_indirectly_ force them to reveal sensitive information. How on earth could a
HR rep make that mistake astounds me.

~~~
toomuchtodo
People are human. No mistakes astound me anymore. They simply fall on the
range between "they haven't had their coffee yet" to "you're going to need
corrective surgery for that not to be permanently debilitating" to "you might
need a great attorney to get you out of this".

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falsedan
Asking questions about protected characteristics (race, sexual orientation,
gender, age, disabilities, etc) isn’t illegal but it’s incredibly stupid since
the company is leaving itself open to trivial wrongful discrimination suits
whenever the reject a candidate. If you don’t ask for those details, you can’t
be accused of using them to screen out candidates.

------
mingodad
Here is what they ask:

Hi XXXXX!

Thank you for reaching out to us, may I ask you how you found us and what
peaks your interest in XXXXXX ? You have built some impressive tools, and I
think we can offer you a set of great challenges in your daily work. You can
find a brief intro to XXXX:
[https://XXXXX.XXX/onepager.pdf](https://XXXXX.XXX/onepager.pdf)

I will briefly outline the steps of our hiring process so you have all
necessary information and know what is going to happen. Luckily, it's not that
complicated. As a startup, we can allow our hiring process to be a lot simpler
and faster than what you will find at most big companies! We just want to
evaluate a few core competences, the rest we can teach you.

Step 0: CV

Could you please share your CV, including:

\- date of birth

\- phone number

\- physical address

\- citizenship

\- marital status

\- IBAN

\- Copy of your passport

After we collected all information we will start the evaluation process.
Please note that if there is some personal information which you prefer not to
share yet, that is ok! We hope that you can send this to us before the
interview in step 2. Furthermore, any confidential information can be
encrypted using my PGP key:
[https://XXXXX.XXX/pgp.asc](https://XXXXX.XXX/pgp.asc)

Step 1: Challenge We first give all of our candidates a challenge. This
challenge is by far our most important means of evaluation, so your effort
will be greatly appreciated. Instead of a whiteboard interview, we have chosen
for our test to be more similar to the type of work that you will be doing at
summitto on a daily basis. That way you know what is awaiting you and we know
that you are up for the challenges ahead. Although most of our applicants have
been able to finish their challenges in a weekend, we do not set a time limit
on any of our challenges, and the time is not taken into account in our
evaluation. For us, communicating well and achieving good results are more
important than the speed at which you can achieve them. We prefer quality over
quantity, same as in our daily business!

Step 2: Interview If the results of the challenge are promising, the interview
will only be a formality in which you can talk to our team members during two
to three interviews. This is really just a social check to see if we like each
other and to see whether we can work together for many hours a day in the same
room ;) but no more tests or coding required!

Step 3: offer You made it. The challenge looks great, we match on a personal
level, and you've managed to excite us about your talent. We'll send you an
offer as soon as possible, normally within a week, and we will discuss which
items and equipment we can order to get you all settled in our office.

We're looking forward to working together with you!

Secure regards,

~~~
idle_zealot
>> may I ask you how you found us and what peaks your interest in XXXXXX ?

May be they should of proof read there copy.

~~~
mingodad
I edited the message and put the XXXX in place to not expose that info, but
someone here already got it, yes it's summitto.com and I was looking for the
link here on HN and it seems that it was removed, probably after this post.

~~~
kaikai
You left it in farther down in the post, in case you wanted to edit it.

~~~
mingodad
Thank you for reply !

I can not edit anymore, it seems that the software disable that option after
some time or other event has passed.

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chrisseaton
Can a company ask for this info? Yes they can ask for almost anything they
want to. What would stop them asking? If you don't want to give them the
information then don't.

~~~
orev
The problem with this attitude is that withholding that information could be
seen as a sign that you’re a problematic employee. Even if the company really
doesn’t care, an applicant has no way of knowing that. So by not answering the
questions you could be eliminating yourself from the job right away.

It’s easy to be pithy and say “well that’s not a place you want to work
anyway”, but that’s counter to the reality that many places don’t have a lot
of employment options, and people simply need every chance they can get to
find a job on merits as opposed to artificial elimination criteria that some
incompetent low level HR person came up with.

~~~
chrisseaton
I thought the original poster was asking if it was legal for the company to
ask this - 'some countries have laws regulating some issues like what a
company can ask for a job applicant' \- yes they can there's only a few
protected categories they can't ask you.

One of them was 'physical address'. I can't think what law someone would think
would mean it was illegal to ask this.

It's not an attitude it was an answer to the question.

