Are ‘Voluntary’ Sex, Race, and Disability Questions Important When Applying for Jobs? Does Declining to Answer Negatively Impact Your Chances? Should I Disclose My Disability? #jobapplication #diversity #inclusivity #disabilityrights #employmentopportunities
Dear HR Experts,
As a white male with major depressive disorder, I often wonder about the significance of disclosing my disability on job applications. Does declining to answer these questions put me at a disadvantage? Is revealing my disability hurting my chances of being hired? Let’s dive into the implications of answering these ‘voluntary’ questions.
### Relevance of ‘Voluntary’ Questions in Job Applications
– How Are ‘Decline to Answer’ Responses Perceived?
– Impact of Disclosing a Disability
– Balancing Honesty and Employment Prospects
I appreciate any insights on these matters.
Cheers,
E_B
I can only speak from my perspective/experience in HR, but these forms are to collect information that HR needs for compliance/reports that are submitted to the govt, etc. As an HRBP, I don’t even see these unless I go in and look at the applicant system. Declining to answer should in no way impact your ability to get an interview. They are voluntary disclosures, unless something is different in MA.
No, it’s collected for EEOC reporting. If you choose not to answer someone in HR will end up having to choose for you.
It 100% shouldn’t be used in any hiring decisions.
In my experience as a recruiter, coordinator, generalist and HRBP, the voluntary forms have never been looked at in the hiring process or used in the hiring decision.
I would only go back and look at them when I needed to do EEOC reporting.
This is a common concern, but let me explain how ATSs work in this regard as someone who has run recruiting operations & HR departments for years.
This data collected in aggregate for EEO (government) reporting. Only those with super admin access can access it. We do so to then fill out the recruiting part of the EEO forms.
In ethical companies, it should not affect your application at all. Now could a company be lazy on systems permissions, give all recruiters super admin access, and recruiters go in and look at your filled out form? Sure, but that’s .001% likely to happen imo.
It shouldn’t hurt your chances Certain employer types are required to report this type of information but aren’t allowed to require it, which is why it’s optional.
Recruiting should never be able to see these responses. They are used for required reporting to the government as others mentioned, and also for internal reporting. If I can see the demographics of who applied to jobs, who was interviewed (and not interviewed), and who was selected (and not selected) it can help me to identify biases in the hiring process.
It should not matter but fwiw, I worked with someone who rejected a candidate for marking yes on disability, “nip a future headache in the bud” is what she said.
Ethical? Hell no.
Does it happen? Yes.
In the vast majority of companies I’ve worked at, these responses are “siloed” away from the other recruiting information. The answers are purely for reporting reasons, and theoretically, no one in HR really even sees it.
I’ve always wondered this, thanks for asking!
If you choose the N/A route, mark all of your optional questions N/A. Otherwise you show which one worries you by not answering it but answering the rest. This way when asked, you can take a principled stance of “This was optional and I opted to not answer” rather than showing vulnerability to a particular question.
As others have said, this is just for EEOC and ACA reporting. No one looks at this during the hiring process.
I do want to clarify – when we do the ACA reporting for recruiting, we can put the equivalent of “unknown” on the report. However, if you are hired and you don’t choose an answer, whoever is compiling the report MUST make an educated guess based on known factors – name, how you look. This can mean that you are reported as the wrong gender or race. Or, at least one you don’t identify as. This is a requirement. We are not allowed to leave it blank and there is no “unknown” box to check. The EEOC report does not have names, but totals for each section – ie White Male, Hispanic Female, etc – with totals for each subsection.
These reports are to monitor discrimination – how many White Males do you have as opposed to Hispanic Females – and pay equity – one of the reports asks for salary information for each “level”, along with race and gender. They list titles or job families so that we are reporting on how many Asian Men are managers vs Indiginous Women. Good companies use this data to see where they need to do more work.
When an employee refuses to fill out the information, HR has to go in and update it to our best guess before running the report. Then employees see it was updated and remove it again. And we have to do the same thing all over again the next time.
There are several other agencies we could be asked to provide this information for, depending on your State – I’m looking at you California. It’s a lot of work, but ultimately it is looking out for the employees best interest – to find those employers that have bad hiring practices.
It is illegal to use the information in these fields to make hiring, promotion, and/or termination decisions. Only HR has access to this info – or whoever is your payroll administrator.
They keep promising to put Gender Identity on the form, but so far we’re still waiting.
I am starting to see general things like blood pressure and diabetes under disabilities. If an applicant says no (and they have them) is it grounds for firing if later on they change to yes?
…”major depressive disorder” is not a disability – suck it up like the rest of use have to…
In my time as an HR consultant, I’ve seen far too many companies use this info to discriminate, so I stopped providing the info. You can still voluntarily provide it once they hire you.