What’s the point of asking such questions during job application?

28 comments

1. Probably trying to figure out if they can flog you a funeral

2. I imagine it’s part of equality and diversity monitoring. They’re probably trying to ascertain your socioeconomic background.

3. I had this same question on a form today! Something to do with social mobility I think? The first option is for professionals but groups all teachers and nurses together and specifies police as only being seargent or above. Which is odd because other police roles don’t appear in the other options and there is a big difference between what a newly qualified teacher or nurse earns compared to those who have been in the profession longer and earned promotions.

4. Seems rather intrusive. I think I would decline to answer that.

5. [deleted]

6. Coop as a company are big on social enterprise, so they go out their way to help people on the lower end of the economic ladder into employment . That said, they still absolutely shit to work for and i know because I’ve done it, lasted 6 months, dont do it to yourself.

7. Maybe they’re trying to ascertain whether you come from a household where ‘blue collar’ type jobs, such as grocery retail, were common or not?

   Perhaps they try to avoid applicants where this wasn’t the case for fear that they may be too aspirational and leave the job before too long?

   Seems like a pretty odd question to ask in any case and I hope my idea isn’t true, I always thought Co-Op were supposed to be the good guys so to speak.

8. Just write some nonsense down like Dolphin shaver.

9. Same as asking if you had free school meals. Confused me at first having recently moved to the U.K. from Sweden where everyone gets food for free in school.

   Guess it helped make my employer look good though.

10. I’d ask how that’s relevant to the position being interviewed for.

11. Like ethnic background, they don’t use it as part of the recruitment process. They use anonymous statistical data to see what kinds of backgrounds they actually recruit from.

12. This is a new thing. I’m graduating now, and applied to many places, and saw this question pops up all the time. Together with whether my parents had a degree, or of I had free school meals when I was a child.

13. This is usually a part of the equality and diversity monitoring form. It’s used to form a picture of the makeup of the staff base along various metrics. It’s non-compulsory but it does give a useful information base for the company as a whole and it’s used for reporting back to government/other agencies (all anonymised and stats based, i.e., “15% of our 2023 intake to grad scheme Y, were recipients of free school meals”). It allows companies to benchmark themselves against the sector and competitors and work out where they may have a recruitment or retention gap.

14. Would I get a better chance if I say drug dealer?

15. Reminds me of the religion/sexualiry questions so they can help stop discriminating. Surely you wouldnt be discriminating if you never knew in the first place?

16. I’ve ditched certain applications when applying when they start asking irrelevant bs like this, especially if it’s some tedious long one.

17. They’re trying to assess your class – they’ll be gathering data as to whether their interview process is attracting too many middle class applicants or dissuading working class applicants from applying.

    It’s the same question used in surveys in the game dev industry. They realised that it was statistically a very middle class pursuit and then took steps to make it more feasible and open to working class people – ie: stopping unpaid internships or roles with poor salaries that only the wealthy can do, increasing visibility in schools and regions outside London about the jobs on offer, etc

    It’ll be along those lines.

18. I imagine it’s to classify your socioeconomic background, for some kind of equality and diversity monitoring. Loads of studies use your parent’s employment when you were a child as a marker of social class.

    I think such questions are irrelevant, none-of-their-business, and shouldn’t be asked (same as questions on sexuality, again used ostensibly for “diversity monitoring”).

19. Social mobility monitoring

20. They are profiling applicants based on socioeconomic background for statistical purposes.

21. They may well be used to positively discriminate in favour of those from.poorwr socio economic backgrounds.

    I am aware that university entrants for example, are awarded points based on deprivation levels of their postcode, whether child of single parent families etc.

22. It’s nonsense diversity monitoring, always put something lower class

23. Trying to figure out if you are a career person or just working until something better comes along.

24. Trying to ascertain what class you are for equality reporting purposes.

    Answer with unemployed.

25. Co-op? Lol, don’t do it.

26. Invasive shit. I answer with N/A.

27. It’s because the employer wants to make the organisation more diverse and/or because the government wants it.

    It is claimed that these answers are anonymous but are they? Who knows?

28. Stupid of them. What your parents did does need t mean they were good parents. Also why is your parents earnings relevant for student loans? What if you have a parent who disown you at age 18?