Why is “What are illegal or/and inappropriate question on job interview?” too broad?

Question

The irony of putting on hold this question How should I handle questions about family/spouse on the job market? is that it limits my right to apply for any position without being the questioned why I choose such a distance, therefore limiting my right to look for a job and have a right to be employed.

The question is concise; it refers to a specific webinar intended for career development of US- and Canada-based academic staff. It talks about the special situation when the applicant or presenter is confronted with the silly question and it mentions the legality of a situation that actually happened.

I didn’t want to make this question only US-based, because I thought this is an international platform and that people from other countries can contribute answering.

Answer 1

First, I want to say that I think that the question posed about how to handle job interview questions about family is important, and is answerable within the framework of the site. I've expanded in more detail some of what I said in the comments. Also, I don't have close or reopen vote privileges, and I up voted the original question in any case.

I would say that the title doesn't quite match the body of the question. The question in the title "What is an illegal or/and inappropriate question in a job interview?" has infinitely many answers, and therefore doesn't fit very well in the Q&A format. However, what you're discussing in the body of the question is, in my opinion, focused enough for it to be answerable in the Q&A format.

The other aspect is that the legal question is very specific to location. If you ask "Is it illegal to ask about spouses in a job interview?" and you want answers for both the USA and the UK, these are basically different questions. The site discourages asking multiple questions in a single question. Aside from this, I think the legal question may not be best suited to this site. In my opinion, it might get better answers on workplace.stackexchange.com, although having said this, the Stack Exchange network in general shies away from legal advice. Still, I think this question is a valid to ask here and should not be closed provided it is asking about a single location.

Apart from the legal question, you also asked "How should I respond to these questions as an early stage career academic?". To me, this is the part of the question which this site is best equipped to answer. As you said, even if the question is illegal, you still need to handle it somehow if it's sprung upon you. It perhaps could have some geographical focus, but I think it doesn't need to have one to be a valid question.

In summary, to me, the legal question and the "how to handle this" questions are separate, and should be split off into separate questions. The "how to handle this" question is good, and is exactly the sort of question this site ought to be able to provoke good answers for.

Answer 2

Your question title

What is an illegal or/and inappropriate question in a job interview?

is an open end question.

There are a lot of things that could be illegal or/and inappropriate to ask in a job interview depending on the local law and the local culture.

Legal and appropriate are two separate questions. Legal in one place does not necessarily imply the question is appropriate in another place.

These are the reasons I voted to close as "too broad" and "leave it closed" when I reviewed the Reopen queue.

However, in your question body

it is illegal to ask a candidate in a job interview about what would friends or/and family think about your job appointment with the institution.

sounds like an answerable question to me if you add a location to it.