An internship application asking candidates about their sexual orientation has gone viral online, leading thousands to wonder whether such a question is even legal. The application was shared online by a man who implied that as a male, cis-gender, white candidate, he would not make the diversity hiring cut.
The application appears to ask the applicant about their race, gender and gender identity. One question also reads: “What is your sexual orientation?”
To this, the candidate in question had replied “Straight/Heterosexual.” He also marked “White” for the question on race and said his pronouns were “He/him.”
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“Going to assume I will not land this internship,” he wrote while sharing a picture of the application form on the social media platform X.
Take a look at the post below:
The post has gone viral with over 2.8 million views on X.
{{/usCountry}}The post has gone viral with over 2.8 million views on X.
{{/usCountry}}“Just lie, they can’t legally question you,” advised one X user. Another countered this by saying that companies are legally allowed to ask these questions, but cannot discriminate based on answers.
“I haven’t had to apply for a job in a long time. Is it normal to ask sexual orientation? Is it even legal?” X user Patrick Gould asked the social media platform at large.
Some respondents said the question on sexual orientation is fairly commonplace. “It’s legal and very normal. Pretty sure most recruitment teams won’t even see this. It’s just to give some statistics on applicants later on,” one person replied.
Several people advised the candidate to “just lie” on the application form if he wanted to land the internship, but one person said: “People think this is for 'diversity hire' but 9/10 its from bigot employees wanting cis het men instead.”