Gender Neutral Job Interview Questions

As a woman struggling in the male dominated IT industry, I would hate, absolutely HATE, to have to leave an interview room with the words “Actually, we’re looking for a male…” ringing in my ears. Of course, this has never happened to me yet. But I know this does in a lot of industries all over the world.

So how does an employer avoid a potential gender related lawsuit from happening? There are several ways to but I would like to focus on one of them: gender neutral job interview questions. To have gender neutral evaluation means that the items on your list must favor neither the male nor female population in your company. Questions that highlight and emphasize the advantage of one gender over the other can imply a discriminatory act towards the implicit underdog. Family orientation and religious background should also be avoided when conducting interviews. There have been cases when the domain names of companies websites have been changed by force for having gender oriented biases. One can never be too careful, especially in a highly competitive world.

Focusing more on skill set and level, educational background, and working experience are a standard
in any interview. And the rating of such categories in making decisions are as equally important. The use of factor point rating method is an analytical and quantitative method of evaluating applicants with different backgrounds and experience. Of course, it is common for interviewers to look more into the personality and potential character trend of applicants. However, having quantitative methods in the selective process can come in handy as well.