Ask HN: Can companies ask for private info before any interview/offer?

For 2019, it is no longer legal to ask for salary history in California. Applicants may volunteer it and prospective employers may ask for the salary the applicant is looking for, but not past salary, either of the applicant or reference checks.

I recently appliedm for a job where the demographic questions of gender and hispanic origin had no opt out - I had to mark male or female. It's my understanding that's not legal, but what is my recourse aside from ending the application process early? Realistically even if I wanted to find a lawyer who'd take the case on, any future employers would be able to see the court records that I sued a potential job in a Google search and I doubt the payoff would be enough to retire on.

Thought I would chime in with the CA laws. It&#x27;s important to note that CA has some of the strictest employment laws in the US surrounding protected classes and more recently the notion of contractors and what&#x27;s allowed there.<p>Some people have said it&#x27;s perfectly legal to ask, and it most certainly is not. Some things may naturally come up in conversation in an interview but if they are specifically asking in writing, and&#x2F;or in their application process that is illegal. Like others said, you might not get millions in a lawsuit, but depending on what state you&#x27;re in, it wouldn&#x27;t be hard to find a lawyer to take a case like this.<p>-Age: employers can&#x27;t ask anything in the application or in the interview process that would indicate age. So an overt question of DOB is completely illegal as are any questions like &quot;what years did you attend university?&quot; or &quot;how old were you when youtube became popular&quot; all are questions that could indicate age. -Citizenship: it is illegal to ask a candidate PRE OFFER what country their citizenship is in. But they are perfectly fine asking you &quot;Are you legally authorized to work in the United States&quot; -Marital status: It is illegal to ask “Are you married?” “Have you been married?” The only thing marital status related that&#x27;s okay to ask is if applicant has a spouse or child that is currently employed by the company. -Copy of your passport: Absolutely not legal pre offer! No employer can require an applicant to produce employment authorization documents prior to hire. -IBAN: Again, not allowed pre-offer. It&#x27;s touchy to even ask for this info post-offer but nonetheless pre-offer is certainly not legal.<p>There are a ton of other protected classes in CA (that are also protected in the rest of the US in different ways&#x2F;shapes&#x2F;forms).

A few years back, I remember being on my way out of what I thought was a pretty successful interview with a very well known (CEO seems to be on the front page of HN every week) U.S. Silicon Valley company. The interview itself was professional and by-the-book. While the H.R. rep was walking me to the front lobby area, she was making small talk and eventually asked something along the lines of &quot;So, are you married? Have any kids?&quot; I was shocked to say the least, and mustered up &quot;You know, I don&#x27;t think you&#x27;re allowed to ask that question.&quot; I mean, she&#x27;s in H.R. If anyone in the company should know what to ask and what not to it&#x27;s her. Never got an offer, and always kind of wondered if my push-back might have been part of it.

Asking questions about protected characteristics (race, sexual orientation, gender, age, disabilities, etc) isn’t illegal but it’s incredibly stupid since the company is leaving itself open to trivial wrongful discrimination suits whenever the reject a candidate. If you don’t ask for those details, you can’t be accused of using them to screen out candidates.

Here is what they ask:<p>Hi XXXXX!<p>Thank you for reaching out to us, may I ask you how you found us and what peaks your interest in XXXXXX ? You have built some impressive tools, and I think we can offer you a set of great challenges in your daily work. You can find a brief intro to XXXX: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;XXXXX.XXX&#x2F;onepager.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;XXXXX.XXX&#x2F;onepager.pdf</a><p>I will briefly outline the steps of our hiring process so you have all necessary information and know what is going to happen. Luckily, it&#x27;s not that complicated. As a startup, we can allow our hiring process to be a lot simpler and faster than what you will find at most big companies! We just want to evaluate a few core competences, the rest we can teach you.<p>Step 0: CV<p>Could you please share your CV, including:<p>- date of birth<p>- phone number<p>- physical address<p>- citizenship<p>- marital status<p>- IBAN<p>- Copy of your passport<p>After we collected all information we will start the evaluation process. Please note that if there is some personal information which you prefer not to share yet, that is ok! We hope that you can send this to us before the interview in step 2. Furthermore, any confidential information can be encrypted using my PGP key: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;XXXXX.XXX&#x2F;pgp.asc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;XXXXX.XXX&#x2F;pgp.asc</a><p>Step 1: Challenge We first give all of our candidates a challenge. This challenge is by far our most important means of evaluation, so your effort will be greatly appreciated. Instead of a whiteboard interview, we have chosen for our test to be more similar to the type of work that you will be doing at summitto on a daily basis. That way you know what is awaiting you and we know that you are up for the challenges ahead. Although most of our applicants have been able to finish their challenges in a weekend, we do not set a time limit on any of our challenges, and the time is not taken into account in our evaluation. For us, communicating well and achieving good results are more important than the speed at which you can achieve them. We prefer quality over quantity, same as in our daily business!<p>Step 2: Interview If the results of the challenge are promising, the interview will only be a formality in which you can talk to our team members during two to three interviews. This is really just a social check to see if we like each other and to see whether we can work together for many hours a day in the same room ;) but no more tests or coding required!<p>Step 3: offer You made it. The challenge looks great, we match on a personal level, and you&#x27;ve managed to excite us about your talent. We&#x27;ll send you an offer as soon as possible, normally within a week, and we will discuss which items and equipment we can order to get you all settled in our office.<p>We&#x27;re looking forward to working together with you!<p>Secure regards,

Can a company ask for this info? Yes they can ask for almost anything they want to. What would stop them asking? If you don&#x27;t want to give them the information then don&#x27;t.