Hiring an employee to work inside your home or to serve as the main caretaker for your children while you are away is a very important decision. It’s understandable that families would like to get to know their candidates as well as they can before considering them for employment. Oftentimes, candidates will describe themselves in a way that gives families a sense of who they are without having to ask these kinds of questions directly. However, employers should be careful about asking specific types of questions during interviews that may unintentionally be considered discriminatory.

Here is a List of Topics That Could Potentially Be Illegal to Ask About in an Interview:

Citizenship or birthplace
Age
Disability
Gender
Marital Status, Family Status, or Sexual Orientation
Race/Color/ Ethnicity
Religion
Criminal History

In the United States, it is illegal for an employer to discriminate against a job applicant because of race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), age, national origin, or disability. The laws vary by state and federal law as well as the type of employer and the number of employees a company has.

Questions to Ask a Candidate During an Interview:

Are you authorized to work in the U.S.? What languages do you speak?
Are you at least 18 years of age?
Do you have any conditions that would keep you from performing this job?
What are your preferred pronouns?
Do you have any commitments that will conflict with your work schedule?
What do you like to do in your free time?
What is something you accomplished that you are proud of?

Yale University provides a few suggestions for candidates on what to do if someone asks you a question you do not feel comfortable answering during an interview:

Ask your interviewer how the question relates to the position you’re interviewing for
Notify the interviewer that you do not feel comfortable answering that question
Try changing the subject
Choose to excuse yourself from the interview

As an employment agency, My Household Managed, adheres to equal employment opportunity guidelines and pledges not to discriminate candidates for consideration based upon race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information.

My Household Managed takes into consideration qualities such as personality, discretion, and professional online presence for all of our candidates. Due to the “ban the box” initiative, Illinois employers, including domestic staffing agencies, must wait until a conditional job offer has been made before running a background check. Once a written job offer has been made by a family, we run the highest level criminal background check and provide the results to the family as a part of the candidate’s conditional offer of employment. Further, My Household Managed’s Gold and Platinum packages include social media background checks on all candidates using Scout Reference, a third-party provider. This internet presence search performs a review of public posts on social media as well as publicly available articles from the web and news sources from the past seven years. The background check will flag posts that contain: hate speech, narcotics, political speech, threat of violence, insults and bullying, obscene language, self-harm, toxic language, drug-related images, explicit/racy images, and violent images. This information is provided as a consumer report as defined under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

Disclaimer: The information provided on this website does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available on this site are for general informational purposes only. Information on this website may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. This website contains links to other third-party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser; My Household Managed and its members do not recommend or endorse the contents of the third-party sites. Readers of this website should seek local counsel to obtain advice with respect to any particular legal matter.

You’ve got enough on your plate in your day-to-day life — let us make your life easier by handling your unique household staffing needs.

If you are a family looking for a nanny, house manager or other domestic staff, submit an application with My Household Managed.

If you are a professional household employee looking for a job, apply at My Household Managed.