Interviews

As with all steps in the selection process, consistency and fairness are critical.

• Interview questions must be clearly job-related and designed to help the search committee determine which candidates have the training, experience, skills and ability to best perform the essential functions of the job.
• Each campus interview should include the same opportunities – meetings with constituency groups, administrators, etc.
• Care must be taken to gather the same job-related information for each candidate through consistency in questions posed by the search committee and input received from other constituency groups involved in the on-campus interview process.

To ensure equity in the selection process, avoid:

• Asking additional questions of one candidate that are not asked of others except where necessary to obtain or clarify an answer to a question asked of all candidates or to clarify information in a candidate’s application materials.
• Asking questions that elicit personal information rather than job-related information. Some non-job-related information, such as number and age of children, can lead to impermissible discrimination. The less non-job-related information you have, the less that could possibly enter into, or be perceived as entering into, a selection decision.

We have an obligation under the law to provide reasonable accommodation to both applicants and employees with disabilities. An applicant with a disability may require accommodation in order to participate in the selection process. For example, someone with a mobility impairment will require that interviews be conducted in locations that are physically accessible.

• Our duty to accommodate applies only to KNOWN disabilities. However, we are precluded under the ADA from making pre-employment inquiries that reasonably are intended to elicit disability-related information.
• In order to meet our accommodation obligation without violating the ADA, when inviting candidates for on-campus interviews it is useful to ask a carefully worded question that gives candidates the opportunity to identify any special needs without asking about a disability. Example: “Are there any special considerations of which we should be aware in planning your visit to Eugene?”