Online application asking marital status...

[jaypee]

It's not illegal to ask. It's illegal to discriminate.

[G-fused]

What have you got to lose?

Don't apply = no job Vs. apply = maybe.

[Zathras]

Basically any questions related to marital status, age, race, religion, sex, children, etc should be avoided during the interview process.

While not strictly illegal per se, employers asking these types of questions run the risk of being charged with discrimination, even when none was intended. If someone doesn't get hired and goes to the EEOC claiming discrimination, the fact that the company asked these questions could be used as evidence against them.

It demonstrates pretty poor judgment on the part of this company's HR dept.

Pre-Employment Inquiries and Marital Status or Number of Children

[macroy]

Originally Posted by jaypee

It's not illegal to ask. It's illegal to discriminate.

This ^^.

There has been numerous threads that get into this.

[dmk31088]

Originally Posted by jaypee

It's not illegal to ask. It's illegal to discriminate.

This. It is not illegal to ask the question, it is illegal for them to discriminate against you based on the response to your question.

So I'm going to guess that someone has seen your email and just decided that you weren't qualified.

[mkpunk]

Originally Posted by Zathras

Basically any questions related to marital status, age, race, religion, sex, children, etc should be avoided during the interview process.

While not strictly illegal per se, employers asking these types of questions run the risk of being charged with discrimination, even when none was intended. If someone doesn't get hired and goes to the EEOC claiming discrimination, the fact that the company asked these questions could be used as evidence against them.

It demonstrates pretty poor judgment on the part of this company's HR dept.

Pre-Employment Inquiries and Marital Status or Number of Children

You'll get some people that will say "But I get to know you that way and if you don't answer it means you are combative." The fact is questions like these aren't right and really have no business in the interview process until you have the job. There is enough to learn about the employee without going into these questions.