Illegal interview question?

Subject: Illegal interview question?
From: "Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 10:19:27 -0500

Jane S. is <<...a Canadian citizen and I've been looking for work in the
States. I've gone to maybe a dozen interviews, and at almost every one of
them I've been asked either if I was Canadian, or if I was not an American
citizen, and what kind of visa I needed. So I've always sportively answered
the questions... The visa isn't an issue, as I explain the TN visa applies
to tech writers and it's a relatively easy one to get. I just found out,
however, that asking for my citizenship or otherwise inquiring into my
unamericanness is illegal.>>

I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect you've been misinformed. Although it's not
legal to discriminate against someone on the basis of citizenship (among
other things), it's also not legal for an American company to simply ignore
the issue and hire you irrespective of your citizenship. Among other things,
the process of gaining permission to work in the States isn't nearly so
simple as you may be thinking; in theory (thanks to "free trade" [sic],
you're right that it's relatively easy to get the visa, but in practice,
immigration is never easy. Put yourself in the shoes of the employer: what
do they do if they need you in 1-2 months, but know that the process of
getting you a visa is going to take you 6 months to 1 year because of
paperwork? From my viewpoint, discriminating against you on that basis would
be perfectly reasonable.

The trick in answering your question ("What should I say when asked about
citizenship?") is to think about this from the employer's perspective: they
simply want to know that they can hire you with minimal fuss and minimal
delay. (Of course, if they have some weird prejudice against Canadians, you
almost certainly don't want to work there anyway.) I'd suggest that you have
your visa already in hand before you go to the interview (thereby showing
that you're a go-getter and that you've done your best to make hiring you
easy). Then, when the question comes up, you can simply wave the visa at
them and say that you're Canadian but pre-approved to work in the U.S. and
thus ready to start as soon as they want you.

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite
of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."--Niels Bohr,
physicist (1885-1962)

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