– Asked me if I plan to move back to my home country in the future and if I have any family obligations in my home country.
– Asked me if I have children.
– Asked my exact age and date of birth.
– Told me the salary would depend on my age (as opposed to experience).
– Asked for my current salary and whether I have insurance.
– Asked my marital status.
– Mentioned that people in my country are very religious.
– Spoke to my recent former employer about me without notifying me or asking my consent.

EDIT: **in many EU countries, asking marital status, age and parenthood status in an interview is illegal** in discrimination grounds (e.g. it shouldn’t matter if I’m a single mother), so I am only asking to see if it is also the case in Belgium: https://www.eurobrussels.com/article/203/are-your-interview-questions-illegal

EDIT EDIT: thank you for answering, FYI someone provided the below article indicating many of these questions are illegal to ask: https://www.jobat.be/nl/art/wat-mag-men-je-niet-vragen-tijdens-een-sollicitatiegesprek

by Pretend_Ad_8806

11 comments

  1. Nothing unusual.
    However courtesy would be informing you about calling a previous employer before doing it.

  2. Not a lawyer, but I have encountered most of these questions at some point in my career. I can’t speak on the legality, but I wouldn’t bother making a big deal out of this. It’s really nothing out of the ordinary.

  3. >Asked me if I have children.
    Asked my exact age and date of birth.
    Told me the salary would depend on my age (as opposed to experience).

    >Asked my marital status.

    I feel like these are quite logical?

    >Spoke to my recent former employer about me without notifying me or asking my consent

    Since when do we need concent to talk to/gossip about somebody

  4. I have heard most of these questions. It does not seem unusual.

    Keep in mind that that information needs to be supplied to the administration anyway for HR purposes: things like children, age, marital status have an effect on your tax declarations and also on things like insurance and hospitalization insurance plans that are part of your payment package.

    And honestly, question such as **”Asked me if I plan to move back to my home country in the future and if I have any family obligations in my home country.**” are to be expected. Most jobs come with training and gaining experience in order to do your job. It does not make sense to hire someone and invest in them, only if you plan to leave next year.

  5. Nothing illegal in the strict sense, although some are really on the edge. But there’s a lot of red flags and if you’ve got multiple options I would stay away from this employer.

  6. These are all wildly toxic and that you all find them normal just show how you’re used to abnormality

  7. Do you have any reason why you shouldn’t answer any of these?
    Because they seem fairly normal questions that are needed to get a general sense of who’s about to (or not) start working in a company.

  8. There are some stupid/non-sensical questions in that list, but the majority are pretty normal I think.

    ​

    * Asked me if I plan to move back to my home country in the future and if I have any family obligations in my home country. -> the first part is valid, the second part is a strange question, could be they’re trying to show interest/make contact. Usually that isn’t a thing to gauge for ‘how long will you be here’, but it could be an ulterior motive, if so, it’s not nice.
    * Asked me if I have children. -> usually that’s just making contact. People don’t get hired/rejected on that basis.
    * Asked my exact age and date of birth. -> perfectly reasonable question
    * Told me the salary would depend on my age (as opposed to experience). -> some companies work in with a (outdated) system like this, usually government bound, or regulated by a government structure.
    * Asked for my current salary and whether I have insurance. -> that’s to gauge what your wage expectations are, insurance is a part of that. You’re free to not answer if you don’t want to influence anything.
    * Asked my marital status. -> usually just making contact again.
    * Mentioned that people in my country are very religious. -> an odd thing to say, but not really a question either.
    * Spoke to my recent former employer about me without notifying me or asking my consent. -> as long as they didn’t ask about stuff like health, absenteeism or things in your personal sphere, but inform about your performance at work, how you where perceived etc, it’s perfectly legal. However, if they didn’t ask if your current employer knows you’re on the job market, it’s a stupid thing to do. I once got ‘informed’ by a company about a colleague of mine having interviews with them before the colleague told me, he did gave them my name, but it was a weird conversation.

  11. Only contacting your previous employer is (very) illegal. This is against privacy laws.

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