> 1. Have a family/children? How does this affect your work?
I think this is a huge no-no to ask in the US, since a company can't discriminate in hiring on the basis of family/children, and this is sounding too close to that. (It's about ideals like fairness, and also about company liability.)
When I'm an interviewee, I don't read too much into early startups doing things like asking that question, since startups are still learning lots of things. But if someone is doing this in a big established company, there might be a disconnect from conventional HR practices there, and who knows what other surprises are in store.
It's never appropriate. I've never been asked that question but my wife has, which suggests to me that the question places women at a disadvantage when applying to jobs.
My wife and basically all of my friends who are women have gone through the exercise of deciding whether to wear a wedding ring to interviews. There's unfortunately a lot of biased nonsense around married/unmarried women in job interviews.
I think this is a huge no-no to ask in the US, since a company can't discriminate in hiring on the basis of family/children, and this is sounding too close to that. (It's about ideals like fairness, and also about company liability.)
When I'm an interviewee, I don't read too much into early startups doing things like asking that question, since startups are still learning lots of things. But if someone is doing this in a big established company, there might be a disconnect from conventional HR practices there, and who knows what other surprises are in store.