Does there need to be an equal amount of male/female interviewees when interviewing an applicant?
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Does there need to be an equal amount of male/female interviewees when interviewing an applicant?
I feel that my job interview was unjust because I was the only male interviewed and the panel of 4 that interviewed me were all female. This company is a global company and there should have been an equal number of male/female interviewers. There were also 3 applicants, I was the only male out of the 3, and 1 of the applicants was already an employee of the company as well.
Asked on April 14, 2012 under Employment Labor Law, Texas
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 12 years ago | Contributor
There is no legal requirement whatsoever that an equal number of men and women be interviewed--that is not what the laws prohibiting gender-based employment discrimination mean. All those laws mean, in regards to hiring, is that an employer cannot refuse to hire someone because he is male (or she is female), or hire a candidate because of his/her sex or gender. As long as sex does not enter into the hiring decision, there is no discrimination; and there are many reasons why, in any given set of interviews for any given position, more members of one gender or the other might be interviewed. It may be that more women, for example, applied for this job; it may be that the women's resumes were, on average, stronger; it may be that some women knew someone already at the company (interviewing or hiring friends or family is not illegal).
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