How To Respond To Offensive Questions In a Job Interview

 
 Whether they're meant to be discriminatory or not, inappropriate questions still come up all the time in job interviews.

In a recent job interview
I was asked if I was married and had kids. Instead of saying that the question was inappropriate, I answered that I was. I thought I wanted to work for this person, but now I’m not so sure. How should one handle an inappropriate question during an interview? 
 
Most interviewers are not out to discriminate against job applicants. Many of the illegal questions that interviewers ask are unintentional and indicative of an inexperienced interviewer who wants to break the ice. But how you handle such questions in the moment is a delicate judgment call. If you pound the desk with indignation, you are likely to receive an apology — but not a second interview. If you believe the question to be an innocent mistake, and you feel comfortable answering, then answer and pivot your response to something relevant, such as how flexible you are to travel. If you are uncomfortable answering — or if you feel that the question isn’t an innocent mistake — feel free to politely explain you are uncomfortable with such questions, and then proceed with talking about things in your background that are relevant.

While one of my employees was on vacation, I had to go on his computer — and I discovered numerous disgusting porn files. I’m not sure if I should say something since I didn’t get his permission. He is otherwise a very strong performer. What to do? 

When you say “his computer,” I assume you mean the company computer assigned to him — not a personal computer that he owns. All company equipment belongs to the company and the company has the right to access the equipment whenever it wants. And downloading porn is certainly a violation of any company’s policy — unless downloading porn is a job requirement! What you should do depends in part on how you define “disgusting.” If you found a few celebrity nude photos from a common Web site, you might take less-severe action — but if the files were of such graphic nature, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t proceed to immediate termination.

By
Nick Scheides.