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> The questions and answers often inadvertently imply things about family status, religion, physical ability/disability, socioeconomic class, age, heritage, etc. that interviews are supposed to steer clear of.

I had a bizarre interview (at an extremely well-known company with an eccentric, controversial founder) where the recruiter asked me directly questions that "BigTech interview training" explicitly taught me to never ask or even walk close to. I was actually shocked and stammered out an awkward "Uhh, I'm pretty sure it's fraught with risk to even ask those things" non-answer, but she seemed genuinely surprised I wouldn't go into personal family details during a professional job interview. So, it seems not everyone has gotten the memo...

by anyfoo17 hours ago|

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Good points. My hypothetical had the implicit assumption that the interviewer was acting in good faith when asking the weekend question. But that doesn't mean that interviewers necessarily are, of course.

by neilv17 hours ago|

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Yeah, and even in good faith, the questions can be problematic.

Example: At the very start of the interview, candidate suddenly feels like they have to hide something about their religion, sexual orientation, or whatever, in how they answer. Or feels like their candid answer to the icebreaker was not received well.

Which is the opposite of what the interviewer intended, with an icebreaker, but their training didn't include how tricky casual icebreakers can be.

by DangitBobby5 hours ago|

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Why would you want to work somewhere that you can't talk about your life, the things that bring you joy, your hobbies? Sounds miserable.

by sokoloff2 hours ago|

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Plenty of time to talk about your life and hobbies once hired. If I’ve got 45 minutes to make a recommendation based on an evaluation, I don’t want to base any of that on your relationship/family status or pets, I certainly don’t want to give the impression that maybe I did that, and therefore, I don’t want to spend any time talking about it in the interview.

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by dmoy2 hours ago|

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You can talk about it at work, after you're hired, like with your coworkers. The company can't ask you about a lot of things in an interview without exposing them to a significant amount of legal liability.