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Discussion on: Terrible Interview Questions

 
csoneill profile image
Christopher Smith O'Neal • Edited

The HR person overreacted. You already said that you have an Insulin Pump. As far as I know, only people with diabetes type 1 need one of those. The software developer just connected the dots

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camdhall profile image
CamDHall

To be clear, I don't believe she forced him to apologize or anything. She likely just explained the situation to him and he realized he didn't really mean to ask me that question. You're right in that in this particular case, she totally could have left it alone, but it's better to be safe than sorry. A good HR rep is going to establish a clear boundary. The point still stands, in the US, this is illegal and more importantly, not common practice by any stretch of the imagination. At least, not for companies which want to continue to exist and remain productive.

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair • Edited

If your number one priority as a company is to make money, you're going to go out of business.

That's the number one priority of a company, especially in the US. Individuals in it might have different priorities (and I'd hope they do!) but don't kid yourself about capitalism. If the company wants to implement equal hiring policies it is entirely because they have evaluated (risk of being fined by the government + sued + bad PR) > (risk of extra expense of paying maternity leave).

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camdhall profile image
CamDHall

Some companies definitely do operate simply to make money, most of which struggle immensely to do so, and waste a ton of money in the process.

Profit is definitely a priority. But most companies exist for other reasons, and focusing solely on making money often leads to huge booms and bust.

As for the second part of your comment. You're missing some important pieces of information. Happy employees are much more productive. And a diverse workforce is almost always more productive. High productivity leads to higher profit margins. Think about this, would you say your code is "better" (more maintainable, cleaner, faster, flexible, whatever) when you're working 80 hours a week, or 40? For me personally the quality of my code drops off sharply after 8 hours of work. Plenty of studies confirm this notion, and most project leads I've worked with have agreed (though not all were in a position to actually improve working conditions).

Companies have a vested interest in a diverse and happy work force. If they decide not to hire a women simply because she might take time off, then the assumption is they're picking a "worse" developer who in the long run will cost them more.

So they'd trade short term profit for long term profit by hiring the better developer, even if they end up paying for maternity leave.

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair • Edited

Happy employees are much more productive

And that's seen by the company as something that's good because it means they will make more money.

Companies have a vested interest in a diverse and happy work force.

Yes, vested as in "profitably motivated".

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camdhall profile image
CamDHall

Yes... Lol. I didn't say it's not a priority at all. My point was it's about more than just the fines they're avoiding.