Re: Question of the Day

[Joe Malin <jmalin -at- jmalin -dot- com>]

To answer question 1, I do not know any law prohibiting an employer from
asking you about your commute. They have the choice of considering you
or not. Recruiters who are not part of the hiring company can do
anything they want; I do not know this for certain, but I would guess
that they can legally ask you *anything*. You can see why I use
recruiters sparingly.

For question 2:  I am confused. You say that the recruiter asked you
this during the interview, but then you refer to a hiring manager. Was
it the same person? A company can ask you to identify anything that
would prevent you from doing the work as stated in the job description.
Inability to do the work required, even if reasonable accessibility is
provided, is a legal reason to refuse employment. For example, a
firefighting department can legally refuse employment to a paraplegic.
For whatever reason, the hiring manager in your case was concerned. The
best thing to do is respond by telling the truth and then saying "Why do
you ask?"

For question 3: The recruiter was trying to gauge what salary/fee/rate
you would ask for. That's not necessarily to get you hired for the
cheapest amount, but to avoid going through the pain of interviewing you
and making an offer if you are expecting much more than they can offer.
In the Silicon Valley, the "standard" once was that you asked for a lot
more money with each new job you took. That was partially because of
rampant salary inflation, especially in the dot com boom. It was also
because most every computer-related profession was in high demand.
Companies these days simply can't afford it.

Modern companies have professionally-designed and actively maintained
systems and procedures for determining the compensation you will get for
a position, considering your experience and your previous
salary/fee/rate. When a company asks me what my previous salary was, I
tell them. When they ask me what my *expectation* is, I spin it: I tell
them that I'm highly qualified, eager to work for them, and make my
decisions based on more than just monetary compensation. That's
partially true; I'm getting a bit long in the tooth so I don't need to
waste my time working with a good salary in a terrible environment.

I haven't been asked any strange questions by company employees, hiring
managers or otherwise, but I usually get off-the-wall questions from
recruiters that get my resume via Monster.com. Fortunately, I have a
very reliable recruiter that I work with exclusively, and so I feel
justified in telling the others "thank you, but I am already working
with someone."

Joe



James Barrow wrote:
> Having recently interviewed for jobs I've become more interested in what
> hiring managers may ask during an interview.
>
> As an aside, this same topic was threaded here about a month ago, but the
> specific question was whether or not a hiring manager could ask questions
> about a woman's pregnancy.
>
> This time, however, my question is not quite that sensitive.
>
> The following scenarios all involved recruiters, and not the client company.
>
> 1.  A recruiter recently asked me if I thought the commute to the client
> company was too far for me to drive.  I said no, and that my average commute
> has been 90 miles round trip for the past six years.  The recruiter refused
> to submit my resume based on the commute.  Can they do this?
>
> 2.  Another recruiter asked me during an interview if I was planning any
> travel in the near future.  Since I was not, I answered no.  It seems to me
> that this is a loaded question.  What if I had already booked a trip six
> months from the date of the interview?  Can a hiring manager refuse a
> candidate based on this?
>
> 3.  (This is the most important) Whenever I actively look for a job, I
> invariably talk to a recruiter who goes through my job history in great
> detail.  This includes asking me what my salary was for every job on my
> resume.  This one bothers me because it always sounds like the recruiter is
> trying to determine how to get me into the job for the least amount of
> money.  At other times I simply cannot recall what my salary was 10 years
> ago.  Am I obligated to answer this question?
>
> What's the most unusual question that you've been asked by a
> recruiter/hiring manager?
>
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