After a lot of thought, I felt compelled to say something.
As someone who conducted interviews at my previous position, I was trained on what topics and questions were illegal to discuss during hiring. Even if a candidate brings them up themselves, the interviewer has a moral duty to steer the conversation away. These include marital status, religion, whether or not you have children or are pregnant, disability, etc.
RTI has a long interview process which actually pleased me. It seemed they really cared about finding the most qualified hire. For those thinking of applying, there is an IQ assessment and around 70 short answer questions to fill out after the first two interviews. I recommend reviewing what topics should be avoided when filling out the essays to protect yourself and avoid any legal issues (looking up lists of illegal interview questions is a faster way to find the topics as an interviewee). I also recommend saving a copy of your answers in a separate document as once you submit them on RTI's internal site you lose access to the questions and your answers. Despite this being a technical position, there were virtually no technical questions. I did follow up wondering why there was no whiteboard interview and was informed that they are fine assuming if you know one programming language, you can learn others on the job with training.
My first four or so interviews went really well. However, I was asked some questions that got very close to being unacceptable, but knowing what I did I just steered the conversation back to relevant topics. (The questions rather naturally lead to answers on marital status, children, and religion.) I assumed no Ill intent and more a lack of interview experience as to these questions' inclusions.
Everyone was kind and respectful, and I was excited to get a chance to be a part of all the great work like the redemptive hiring practices and missions in Honduras. The team even sent me flowers after I had to have my gallbladder removed between interviews. I was so touched, and I thought this company was legitimately a great Christian company that believed in treating others with kindness and respect and believed in loving thy neighbor.
However, yesterday I was asked to take an additional phone call last minute (I already completed the final official panel interview). After a bit of dialog I expected, such as when I could expect to receive the offer information, the tone turned uncomfortable.
Let it be known that the quantity and quality of the love I have for friends and family is not affected by the race or gender of the person that they love. And relevant to this post and to the hiring interview, it also has no effect on my ability to write code or troubleshoot software.
The man on the call asked me multiple times with increasing aggressiveness and bluntness to explain why I seemed to be supportive, but I declined to answer as it falls into one of those illegal categories.
I hoped the uncomfortableness was over, but he then brought up that I had mentioned attending the 2022 Texas Women's Conference on social media. (FYI it is a conference for empowering women in leadership, I got to attend a webinar by the author Susan Cain with women at my previous employer). He implied that this was too political and would not be a good "culture fit". He declined my request to have the specific reasons I was not being made an offer in writing.
I am heartbroken that a company with honoring God's eternal love at its core would have such hateful views and seem to employ illegal interview questions to ferret out "problems" with a candidate's family. I hope these issues are just due to a few bad apples and changes can be made. For those applying, understand it is a very long process with several questions that may mislead you. Know your legal rights so you can be on the lookout for these illegal questions.
Update:
Got an email back from their HR, and they are going to have some team interview training to help prevent discrimination in the hiring process. I hope this helps, but for future hires, still be sure to know your rights.
