Joseph Liu wrote an agreeable article about how companies have a tendency to delve too deep into the personal background of interviewees, thus making the interview an uneven playing ground. Some questions such as “are you currently using birth control” really do cross the line, especially when it is blatantly obvious that whether or not you use such a thing will affect you in your job. However, if you look at things from the company’s perspective, they are hiring someone for a period of time who they’ll pay a sum of money to depend on to do their work. If you’re depending on someone as well as paying them money, wouldn’t you feel like you have every right to interrogate your interviewees to your heart’s content? Joseph further validates his point when he says:

“As long as questions are relevant to providing a better understanding of a candidate’s ability to do what is expected of them, companies should have the right to ask those kind of questions.”

It makes perfect sense to ask an employee detailed questions if it’ll enable the company to better guage the competency of a interviewee as well to clarify the background checks of him/her. So while it does seem unfair to the public to feel like they’ve had their privacy invaded, it is actually done for the greater good of the company in the long run.

Link to Joseph Liu’s article: bit.ly/SR07Il