Interview Questions a Dental Practice Can't Ask

Federal discrimination law starts from a list of protected traits.

The EEOC lists them as race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, transgender status and sexual orientation), national origin, age (40 or older), disability and genetic information — and it is illegal to discriminate against a job applicant because of any of them.

A question does not have to name a protected trait to be a problem.

The EEOC's position is that inquiries relating to race, color, sex, national origin, religion or age are not clearly forbidden by federal law, but may be used as evidence of intent to discriminate unless justified by some business purpose.

The safe script is "ask only what the job requires."

Which statute applies depends on your headcount:

Each threshold counts employees for each working day in 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year.

One federal rule reaches smaller offices: the EEOC says the INA prohibits national-origin employment discrimination by employers with four to 14 employees.

A very small practice should not read the table as an exemption.

Federal thresholds may leave a practice under 15 employees outside Title VII and the ADA, but state laws can cover smaller employers — confirm your state's threshold with employment counsel.

Intent is not the only route: under Title VII, a practice that causes a disparate impact based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin is unlawful if you cannot show it is job related for the position and consistent with business necessity.

Same questions for every candidate in the role is the habit that follows.

The line starts before the interview: Title VII and the ADEA already bar job ads indicating a preference based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin or age — though Title VII's bar carries an exception where religion, sex or national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification.

The EEOC also says not to ask an applicant for a photograph before an offer; one for identification can wait until an offer is accepted.

In California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, Colorado and the District of Columbia, this page's research verified laws that bar or restrict asking a candidate's wage or salary history.

• California bars seeking salary history information — including compensation and benefits — personally or through an agent, and bars relying on it as a factor in deciding whether to hire or what to offer. It applies to employers of any size; salary history the applicant volunteers without prompting is the exception.
• New York bars asking for wage or salary history as a condition of being interviewed, considered or hired, and bars relying on it to decide whether to hire or what to pay — agents and recruiters included. You may confirm prior pay only if, after an offer with compensation, the candidate responds with pay information to support a higher offer.
• Illinois bars screening applicants on wage or salary history, requiring it as a condition of being considered or interviewed, and seeking it from current or former employers.
• Massachusetts bars seeking it from the candidate or a current or former employer; it can be confirmed after an offer with compensation has been negotiated and made.
• Washington bars seeking it from the applicant or a current or former employer; pay the candidate volunteered, or that surfaces after an offer with compensation, can be confirmed.
• Colorado bars seeking a prospective employee's wage rate history, relying on it to set pay, or retaliating against a candidate who will not disclose it.
• Washington, D.C. bars screening candidates on wage history — including requiring it to satisfy minimum or maximum pay criteria — and seeking it from prior employers.

Two follow-ons matter.

The ban follows your reference calls — New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Colorado, Illinois and DC bar seeking a candidate's wage or salary history from current or former employers, so keep pay off the reference script.

Cities can add their own rules: Cleveland, Ohio, has a local pay-transparency law (Cleveland Codified Ordinances Chapter 669) enforced by the city's Fair Employment Wage Board — whether it reaches salary-history questions was not verified for this guide.

That list is the map this page can source, not the whole map.

Other states and cities may have salary-history rules that were not verified here — confirm the current rule with employment counsel before prior pay goes into any application, phone screen or script.

The workable habit is to make prior pay irrelevant: set the range from your budget and the market before the first screen, and ask forward-looking questions — "What are you looking for in your next role?"

If old pay comes up unprompted, the state rules above apply — California lets you consider salary history the applicant volunteers without prompting, while New York's only exception operates at the offer stage, when an applicant responds to an offer with prior pay to support a higher one.

The EEOC's guidance is direct: employers should generally not use non job-related questions involving marital status, number and/or ages of children or dependents, or the names of spouses or children.

In a dental office the risky versions sound friendly — "Are you married?", "Kids?", "Who watches your children while you work?"

There is one window: after an offer is made and accepted, you may ask them if you need them for insurance or similar purposes.

Asking them only of women is clearly discriminatory, per the EEOC — and even asked of every candidate, they may be seen as evidence of intent to discriminate against, for example, women with children.

Pregnancy sits inside "sex" in federal law — the EEOC lists sex, including pregnancy, among the traits an employer may not discriminate over — and EEOC regulations make any pre-employment inquiry that directly or indirectly expresses a limitation or discrimination as to sex unlawful unless it rests on a bona fide occupational qualification.

"Are you planning to become pregnant?" fails that test.

What you actually need is schedule certainty, so ask about the schedule: "This role is Tuesday through Friday, 8 to 5, with one Saturday a month — does that work for you?"

Same answer, no protected trait in it.

Age questions live in a gray zone.

EEOC regulations say a help-wanted ad asking applicants to state their age is not automatically unlawful, but will be closely scrutinized because it may deter older applicants; in the interview, an age question can be used as evidence of discrimination unless you can show a business purpose.

The ADEA bars ads indicating an age preference, and the EEOC lists age 40 or older among the traits you may not discriminate against an applicant over — so "young, energetic team" stays out of the whole hiring process.

Religion questions have a simple substitute.

The EEOC says most employers — other than religious organizations — should avoid questions about an applicant's religious affiliation, such as place of worship, days of worship and religious holidays, and should not ask for references from religious leaders.

For Saturday coverage, the question is "Saturdays are required — can you commit to the schedule?", never "Which church do you attend?"

Citizenship has its own timing rule.

The EEOC says most employers should not ask whether an applicant is a U.S. citizen before making an offer.

What a practice actually needs to know is work eligibility, so the swap is "Are you authorized to work in the United States?"

Federal law also bars running the Form I-9 and E-Verify processes before the candidate accepts the offer.

And questions about where someone is "really from" add nothing — like other national-origin inquiries, they can serve as evidence of intent.

This is the category with a hard federal bar.

Under the ADA, an employer may not conduct a medical examination of a job applicant or make inquiries about whether the applicant has a disability, or as to its nature or severity, before an offer.

"Do you have any medical conditions?" sits squarely inside that bar — so save health, injury and workers'-comp questions for after a conditional offer.

What you can ask about is the job.

The ADA lets you make pre-employment inquiries into the ability of an applicant to perform job-related functions, and EEOC regulations let you ask an applicant to describe or demonstrate how they would perform those functions, with or without reasonable accommodation.

For a chairside role the version that stays legal sounds like: "Can you perform the essential functions of this job — such as sitting chairside for extended periods — with or without accommodation?"

After a conditional offer, the door opens.

The ADA lets you require a medical examination after making an offer and before work starts, and condition the offer on the results, if the statute's conditions are met — including that all entering employees in the job category are examined; the EEOC adds that you may then ask any disability-related question or require an exam, provided everyone selected for the same job gets the same ones.

Asking one candidate, on a hunch, is what that uniformity rule exists to prevent.

Family medical history sits in the same no-go zone.

GINA — which uses the Title VII definition covering employers with 15 or more employees — makes it unlawful, with narrow exceptions, to request genetic information, and "genetic information" includes the manifestation of a disease or disorder in an individual's family members.

"Does your family have a history of back trouble?" is a genetic-information request, not small talk.

The EEOC's general principle ties the page together: pre-employment information gathering should be limited to what is essential to decide whether a person is qualified, and pre-offer disability inquiries are explicitly barred.

Carry the same discipline into your reference calls: "Why did they leave?" and "Would you rehire?" are in bounds; "Any health issues?" is not.

Criminal-history questions are a timing question.

The states this page's research covers:

• California: the Fair Chance Act bars employers with five or more employees from asking about conviction history on the application or otherwise before a conditional offer.
• Illinois: no criminal-history questions until the applicant has been found qualified and told they are selected for an interview — or, if there is no interview, until after a conditional offer (narrow exceptions apply where law requires excluding certain convictions).
• Washington: no asking about or obtaining an applicant's criminal record, including through a background check, until after you initially determine the applicant is otherwise qualified — and no advertising openings in a way that excludes people with criminal records.
• Colorado: since September 1, 2021, all employers must keep criminal-history questions off the initial written or electronic application, though a publicly available criminal background report can be obtained at any time; the same law bars stating in an ad that a person with a criminal history may not apply.

Other states and cities may have fair-chance rules that were not verified for this guide, and this page deliberately gives no national count.

Check your state's timing before the conviction question goes on the application or the script.

What to ask is its own craft, and the role pages own it: the dentist interview questions guide covers what to ask an associate candidate, and the hygienist interview questions guide covers what to ask a hygienist candidate.

This page owns the other half — the questions that never make the script.

For the rest of the process, start from the dental hiring hub.