That eye-opener comes from a Yahoo! HotJobs online poll, in which 62% of respondents reported being on the receiving end of a question about a verboten topic, such as one’s religion or marital status. Almost a third (32%) had not been asked such a question, and 7% said they didn’t know.

The numbers surprised me and several of my colleagues, so it’s worth reviewing what’s permissible and not.  Interviewers are not allowed to ask about:

• Your age
• Your race or ethnic background
• Gender or sex
• Marital status
• Country of national origin or birthplace
• Whether you have children (or plan to)

If you find yourself being asked a question you believe may be illegal, you can handle it in a variety of ways.

You can answer the question. This option may work if you’re not offended by the question and you really want the job.

You can tactfully point out that the question is illegal. Your interviewer may not even know that he or she has crossed a line. However, you also run the risk of putting your interviewer on the defensive, which won’t work in your favor.

You can side-step the question and bridge to something relevant.  Respond with something like: “I’m sorry, but I don’t think that is pertinent to the job we’re discussing, but I can tell you about [insert segue topic here].”

Avoid letting loose with indignation — unless you really don’t want the job and want to make an unpleasant scene.

Check out these three articles for more tips:

• How to Handle Illegal Interview Questions
• Using Tact With a Rude Interviewer
• When Interviewers Attack!

On the lighter side, check out one of the funniest depictions of an interview with illegal questions: It’s in the first episode of the “Mary Tyler Moore Show.” (You can fast-forward to minute 6 to get the interview scene.)  She tries a combination of the above three tactics, with hilarious results. What a classic!

The do’s and don’ts are quite helpful, without a hint of partisanship. I’m most intrigued by one that recommends that you keep your answers to two minutes, following a similar rule from the debates. Of course, the candidates aren’t always good at keeping their responses to two minutes. But job-interviewees should.

Interviewers can only take in so much information at a time, and they’ll want you to get to the point quickly. I know I’ve had my eyes glaze over as an interviewer when the candidate just kept talking. Of course, the two-minute rule isn’t completely literal, but it’s a good guideline. If you practice some answers before your interview, you’ll be surprised how easily it is to fill that span of time.

For more on the election’s relevance for job seekers, see my post on “gotcha” interview questions and the article “What the Election Means for Your Career.”

The question was an ice-breaker of sorts, but I realized later it’s a great question for a job interview. How and whether you “consume” news says a lot about you. I’ve used the question ever since as an interviewer.

But when vice presidential hopeful Gov. Sarah Palin was recently asked the same question by Katie Couric for CBS News, she couldn’t name specific newspapers or magazines. (Why not at LEAST plug the local Alaska paper?) A similar blunder occurred when Palin was asked to name another Supreme Court decision (besides Roe v. Wade) she disagreed with.

The McCain-Palin campaign is now bemoaning these instances as unfair journalism. Really?? Watch the clips (available at cbsnews.com). Couric was quite gentle in her delivery, and asking for specifics is an example of her doing her job.

And since Americans largely doesn’t know Gov. Palin, it’s not a stretch for us to view this interview (one of the few she has granted since being named to the Republican ticket) as a job interview. Being vice president is a job — a very important job. A softball question about newspapers and a more substantive question about Supreme Court decisions are items that the American public, as the “hiring manager” in this case, are entitled to know about as they evaluate this extremely important decision.

Suffice it to say that so far Palin has given good examples of what NOT to do in a job interview. I hope for her sake she does better in the debate.

On a related note, read “Job-Hunt Lessons from the Campaign Trail,” for more corollaries.

Most people I’ve talked to on the job-seeker side tend to agree. The problem is that people rarely tell the truth, or they manipulate it to a degree that it feels phony. Come on, who’s going to say, “I have zero patience for incompetents or posers”?

Many recruiters, on the other hand, disagree about the question’s worthlessness. In a recent edition of the Recruiter Roundtable on Yahoo! HotJobs, I was surprised to see most participants defend the practice of asking a candidate about his or her weaknesses.

“It’s not that I want to nitpick or make people feel uncomfortable, but rather I want to see in which areas they feel they need to improve and what they are doing about it,” says DeLynn Senna, a staffing executive with Robert Half International.

I’d like to strike that question from the interviewer lexicon, but it’s not going to happen. Read the article for more tips on coping with it, or using it to your advantage.

From July 15 to Aug. 15, all employees in the firm Richter7 must wear shorts, capris, skorts, kilts — anything but long pants — to work until the city’s record-breaking heat lets up. The dress code even applies to meeting with clients. Those who violate the rule will be fined a quarter.

July 2007 was Utah’s hottest month on record, and August 2007 was 0.1 degree away from matching the hottest August on record, according to the firm.

When I first got the firm’s press release, I wondered what would happen if someone showed up at Richter7 for a job interview in the next month wearing a suit. Tim Brown, Richter7’s partner in charge of morale boosting, told me that he would consider such a long-pants-wearing candidate “normal.”

But if the person showed up in shorts because he or she did research and knew of the no-long-pants policy, that would be a “major score,” he said.

“There’s someone who has set himself or herself above the rest,” Brown told me via email. “We’d think, ‘Way to be connected to your audience,’ which in this case is Richter7, the job interviewer.”

His response underscores the point that you should always research company culture and dress code before an interview, and then dress accordingly. Expert recruiters recently offered more good fashion and grooming tips on Yahoo! HotJobs.

I still wouldn’t recommend capri pants for men — especially in an interview.

There are additional tips on Yahoo! HotJobs on how to land a first job and essential workplace skills all grads should have.  Also there’s a great column on the age-old experience conundrum: How do you gain experience when employers keep passing you over?

The survey was done by OfficeTeam, and here are some of the quotes from executives about real-life interview blunders they experienced:

• “A job applicant came in with a cockatoo on his shoulder.”
• “We had one person who walked out of an interview into a glass door — and the glass shattered.”
• “An interviewee put his bubble gum in his hand, forgot about it, and then shook my hand.”

While some simple common sense can keep you out of the Interviewee Hall of Shame, all job-seekers would do well to review some of the tips in this article, based on the OfficeTeam survey. In addition, check out this primer on job interview etiquette.

 ”Dancing with the Stars” holds the second spot, followed by “Lost,” “CSI,” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” My favorite, “The Office,” is at No. 6. For the full list, see the Spherion press release.

I wouldn’t be surprised if “Idol” watchers talk more about Paula Abdul’s wackiness than any of the show’s contestants. It’s like she’s still got one foot in that cartoon world from her video “Opposites Attract.”

Aside from the singing, the show can teach viewers some interesting lessons about personal branding and self-presentation that can help a job search. Check out this helpful article on how to interview like an “Idol.”

And I’ll just say right now: If Kristi Yamaguchi doesn’t win “Dancing with the Stars,” my coworkers are going to hear about it!

The finding isn’t that surprising, as career experts often cite the handshake as an important element in a “first impression.” But it’s interesting to see the phenomenon studied scientifically, using 98 students (men and women) in mock interviews. For more, read this article.

Hiring decisions are often made within the first 10 minutes of an interview, no matter how long the interview lasts. And that decision will definitely take into account your appearance, your manner, and your handshake.

And while we’re on the subject of nonverbal cues and what they say about you, I recommend an excellent article written by my friend and neighbor, Pay Mayfield.

But what about the flip side? I’ve been on job interviews in which the interviewer greeted me with a limp, “dead fish” handshake. It definitely made me wonder about whether I would want to work with or for that person.

Or even worse, the other person closes his/her hand too quickly on yours, squeezing your knuckles. In that case, I always stifle the urge to ask, “Can we try that again?” Maybe asking for a handshake re-do would create a worse impression?

We’re all involved in that sort of hiring process right now, and over the past year we’ve whittled down the field of candidates to three senators, all of whom badly want to be the next U.S. president. Looking at the presidential candidates as job applicants, we can learn some basic lessons about how to successfully conduct a job search.

I recently wrote an article about six do’s and don’ts from the campaigns, and one example of a lesson is that a job candidate must differentiate herself or himself. Sen. Barack Obama is a good example of that, with his message of “Change We Can Believe In,” which helped establish his early momentum.

Career expert Alexandra Levit (author of How’d You Score That Gig?) suggests: “Find your niche, or an area of the organization where something is broken that you have the unique expertise to fix. Clearly outline why your offering is different and better than what’s already being done, and build a business case for it.”

Many career experts also suggest that job seekers should have a personal brand identity, a 30-second “elevator pitch,” or a single slogan or summary sentence that distinguishes you.

In the case of the two remaining, dueling Democrats, they seem to have narrowed their differentiators to one-word themes: “solutions” (or possibly “experience”) for Sen. Hillary Clinton and “change” for Sen. Obama.

Can you summarize what you are about — or what you bring to the table — in a single word?

]]> http://thecareerbeat.com/blog/2008/04/18/job-hunt-lessons-from-the-campaign-trail/feed/ 0