Very Strange interview questions ???

[plantingacattree]

So my partner is in the process of applying for a new job. It is something he has never done before, and seems to have a very unique interviewing and vetting process. He is through to what is effectively stage 3 currently, of the process. But he was met with some rather strange questions, which although he was comfortable answering.. they were pretty odd. To us anyway.
One of them was "during your childhood until age 14, were you ever eligible for free school meals?"
What on Earth?
Another, was : " when you were at the age of , or around the age of 14, was the main earner in the household working at a low - skill place of employment?"
Now this job entails working with semi-vulnerable people. But surely these questions aren't actually relevant?? Unless they are trying to gage whether the applicant will have experience and therefore more empathy for others in similar situations??
It is completely odd to me. Free school meals ??
The 2nd part of the interview was essentially playing a series of mini games on your phone to test reaction time and attention to detail!
So very strange

Is this civil service? And do you mean the application form and not a job interview?

Quite common these days for employers to ask from a social mobility perspective.

Sorry I didn't necessarily mean at interview but they're part of the civil service annual staff survey.

@wavws
Yes this is civil service.
I mean the application process yes, my mistake. Wrong choice of words.
Do you know if there's any relevance in these questions. I just found it rather odd and unnecessary

They’re very standard questions, he won’t be assessed on them it’s to assess the socio economic background of applicants, it’ll come under the same section as ethnicity/sexual orientation etc, it’s purely for stats, not assessment of candidates.

These are very standard questions on diversity forms, they demonstrate if the company are hiring people from working class backgrounds. Surely you’ve come across demographic questionnaires before

@NashvilleQueen that is interesting. Do you know roughly why it would be asked though? Does it link to their equality procedure or something?

I mean very standard on an application form, not asked face to face in an interview.

@Pumpkindoodles I personally haven't. Not those related to employment anyway.
Social surveys I guess so, it would make more sense to me.
It does make sense that these would be asked on a diversity/equality type basis.

Organisations are trying to recruit or at least monitor employees to see if they're diverse. Whether someone got free school meals is a good indicator of background. Companies see the benefit of a diverse workforce and are trying to create better ones. Employ all white middle class uni grads and you don't get much diversity of thought

@Changingplace thank you for the reply.
Yes this is the application process. I would find it even more strange if it were asked face to face 😆
I did find the age 14 rather specific however.

Really normal these days. They're gathering social mobility data.

@Funngames1 that does make sense, although if the questions were never asked, I'm sure companies could look just as diverse. As you can't tell somebodies background by looking at them (not always anyway)
Plus employers should be looking at skill, experience and work ethic during their recruitment process. Not seeing whether somebody was lower or higher class in their upbringing so they can pull it out when questioned about their companies overall diversity.
"You don't seem to have a variety of employees from a diverse background here"
Employer : "actually as you see here, our employee Michael was in receipt of free school meals at aged 9, I think that is pretty diverse, don't you?"

I’ve come across this on most application forms over at least the last 10 years, social mobility is an important thing for companies to demonstrate these days, they want diversity not an identikit workforce.

These questions aren’t part of the decision making process, it’s for background stats - same as asking religion or ethnicity.

I would say it’s about equality and diversity monitoring

Thought so!

So the civil service, being public sector, is essentially audited on those responses. EG:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/action-plan-to-increase-socio-economic-diversity-in-the-civil-service

So those application form questions are just to see whether the CS is becoming more diverse.

The responses to those application form questions are not visible to interviewers and those questions should not be asked at interview stage.

it’s standard practice in civil service recruitment, those questions will be asked as part of every job application.

Very standard on application forms in the private sector too! It's about social mobility for their DE&I processes

I hope the questions like these on diversity forms were optional, as they always were back in the days I encountered them, before I retired just over a decade ago.

I've always been happy to disclose my nationality, ethniticity, etc, or to collect such info as part of my job, but I'm wondering whether, even in a diversity questionnaire, this is a step too far if the replies can be seen by the interviewers who decide who to appoint.

In a face to face interview, they should not be judging on skin colour or accent, and this seems to be capable of being abused by those deciding who to appoint, if they happen to be prejudiced against, say, people with "common" accents.

@SequentialAnalyst I recruit for the civil service and the interviewer/sifters cannot see that part of the application form.

@wavws @wavs thank you for the information. Having thought about it now, it does actually make sense. And maybe it was a silly question for me to have asked. I just have never come across this before and it seemed odd to me.
It's interesting to know that these answers are not visible to interviewers!

As far as I know, it's not used to assess him for the job, as an individual. But they will collect the data and then use the statistics to check whether their processes are attracting a representative number of applicants from more disadvantaged backgrounds, and whether those applicants have the same rate of success at interview as other candidates. So that they can judge whether their diversity and anti-discrimination initiatives are working.

I’ve been part of recruitment panels in the public sector where these questions are asked and this info isn’t available to the interview panel, it’s kept anonymously as background info.

Standard in Civil Service and always optional. Used for diversity monitoring to see if we are attracting from a wide range of backgrounds. All of this info is kept hidden from hiring managers so candidates won't be assessed on these questions. Regarding asking about main household earner at age 14, I believe the Social Mobility Commission (SMC) carried out extensive research and these questions were judged to be the best measure.

@plantingacattree @AutumnalPumpkin also did you NC?