How much personal information should you reveal during a job interview?

Quite simply, there are some things that you may not want to offer up during an interview.

Were not talking about lying, were simply talking about the fact that some things are better left unsaid and dont need to be divulged during an interview.

Depending on where you live and the local laws that govern hiring, interviewers tend to shy away from asking questions related to your sex, gender, race, religion, marital status, age, sexual preference and other personal areas especially when they dont directly relate to the job.

If you are a woman, you should not expect to be asked if youre planning to have children so there is really no need to offer this information up either.

Unless its directly related to the job and your ability to perform it, you probably wont be asked a lot of unrelated personal questions so be careful with what information you volunteer.

There might be questions that do touch on personal issues when it is relevant to the job. For example, this could include asking you about your propensity to travel if the job requires significant travel.

Alternatively you could be asked about your ability to speak a certain language if its a requirement of the job.

Sometimes, personal questions are asked by inexperienced interviewers with no malice intended and they may not realize the question is inappropriate. This is no excuse for them to do this, but just watch how you react and respond to the question.

If you find that the interview is starting to move into the realm of personal questions or if you accidentally steer the interview in that direction by offering up personal information that you maybe shouldnt have, try to steer the interview back into a discussion of the job.

The company you are going to interview with is most likely not going to tell you everything about them if you dont ask.

If the last person who held the job you are interviewing for was fired because they had an office affair, do you think the interviewer will tell you?

Or do you think theyll probably just tell you that the last person who held the job left the company for another opportunity or something like that?

Probably the latter.

You simply need to be careful with what information you choose to divulge because it can be used against you.

While certain personal information might be necessary to discuss during the interview, interviewers tend to stay away from asking many personal questions so if a question is not asked, you probably dont have to feel an obligation to volunteer to divulge it.

Carl Mueller

My name is Carl Mueller and I'd like to thank you for learning a bit more about me!

I feel that I have numerous relevant experiences during my career that come in useful when helping people with their careers:

I know what it?s like to work internationally, having worked overseas (in New Zealand, from 1994-1998).

I've survived several corporate downsizings while many of my colleagues were being laid off.

I have also experienced being laid off twice myself during corporate downsizings.

I know what it?s like to be self-employed.

I've helped many people find better jobs. I started to work as a professional recruiter in 2000 first as an Information Technology (IT) recruiter and then in general recruitment across many industries including IT, manufacturing and marketing. Since this time, I have helped many people find their dream career and it?s a great feeling.

I experienced one of the slowest hiring periods in recent memory especially during the general hiring slowdown that followed the Y2K frenzy in 1999, the bursting of the dot com bubble in early 2000, and then the employment market bottoming out following September 11, 2001.

These were certainly not great times to be a job searcher in most industries nor was it a particularly good time to be a recruiter.

Following this, I began running the day to day operations of an Internet-based company in early 2003 that focused on developing online software and subscription-based websites for consumers. It was then that I fully realized the power, usefulness and potential of the Internet which really spurred me to set up my own website which you can view in my Personal URL section below this bio.

I?m also a Platinum Ezine Articles Expert as recognized by EzineArticles.com, one of the most visited websites on the Internet. This special designation is earned by having consistently high-quality articles published and viewed on their website. All of my submissions are related to helping you find your dream career and many of my articles get reproduced on other websites by their webmasters.

Good luck with your career and I hope I have been of assistance to you!