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Ask HN: For job applications do the voluntary disclosures matter? Why have them?

by NewUser76312 on 3/15/25, 9:58 PM with 4 comments

I was visiting a friend this weekend and he was showing me his job-hunting experience. It seemed that 90% of applications were asking all of the same voluntary personal questions - what's your gender, what's your ethnicity, are you disabled, are you Hispanic, what's your sexual orientation, etc.

He said he puts "choose not to disclose" or the closest option to that for every choice. He figured his answers could only hurt him, because he doesn't fit into any 'diverse' categories.

I was wondering, do the answers to these questions matter at all in terms of the candidate's chances of success? And moreover, why is any of this asked in the first place? I haven't applied for work formally in a long time, so this all came as a shock to see.

  • by Flundstrom2 on 3/15/25, 10:18 PM

    Although not explicitly illegal, asking these kind of questions in another country would open up the risk of being sued for discrimination in case a person belonging to a minority wouldnt get the job.

    Ive always wondered about the US' obsession with racial heritage (I thought that got settled in 1945) etc.

  • by curious_curios on 3/15/25, 10:13 PM

    These questions are asked (at least in the US context) due to required reporting to the EEOC: https://www.eeoc.gov/data/eeo-data-collections

  • by unnamed76ri on 3/15/25, 10:29 PM

    It’s been awhile since I was a hiring manager but I was told the company gets paid thousands by the federal government for each Hispanic person they hire.