As high volumes of people applying for the same positions has made the employment market very competitive, 58 percent of job seekers report they were pressured to divulge private information in a job interview.
After a surge in job seeker complaints, Irish online recruiting company FindEmployment studied the discriminatory practices in global job recruitment processes. The study found that 15 percent of job seekers reported they have been offered "terrible" salaries by interviewers in HR administration who were aware the candidates were desperate for employment and would accept a "degrading" offer.
According to FindEmployment, one in 10 candidates have been asked to sacrifice employment rights to secure a job. Five percent of respondents reported employers have asked for part of the candidate's wage in return for a job offer, and 2 percent of employers have asked candidates for sexual favors during an interview.
"The use of many of the pre-screening techniques revealed in the survey are so unjustified and constitute such an invasion of the job seeker's privacy that prohibition is the only answer," said Esther Lynch, Irish Congress of Trade Unions officer. "Employers who demand information from job seekers on any grounds of prohibited discrimination such as sexual orientation or religion are acting unlawfully," she added. Similar employee privacy laws are strictly enforced in the U.S. as well.
