Employers sometimes ask people applying for jobs for personal information, such as their hobbies and interests | Band 8 IELTS essay sample
Employers sometimes ask people applying for jobs for personal information, such as their hobbies and interests, and whether they are married or single. Some people say that this information may be relevant and useful, others disagree. Discuss both the views and give your own opinion.
Here is a band 8 essay on this topic submitted by one of our students. Send us your writing samples for a free band score estimate or get a detailed analysis of your writing for a fee.
Band 8 IELTS essay sample
Many a time applicants are asked to provide personal information including their interests, hobbies and also marital status. Some recruiters feel that this information is useful. I agree with that view. In my opinion, personal information gives a lot of insight into a job applicant’s personality and hence it is crucial; however, there is a small risk of it being misused by the employer.
However, whether an employee needs to share personal information depends on the nature of the job. For example, a recruiter does not have to ask for the personal information of a contract employee or a consultant whose service is required for only a short period. Whereas in the case of a permanent job an employer must know about an applicant’s hobbies or interests as knowing about a person’s interests can help to understand if they possess leadership skills or if they are a team player. An employer may also benefit from knowing a potential employee’s marital status. For example, if an employer is looking to hire an air hostess who is supposed to work odd hours and even on weekends, it does not make sense for them to hire a woman with young kids.
On the down side, some people insist that employers should not ask for personal information. According to them, the recruiter may use the personal information to discriminate against an employee and this argument is valid to a certain extent. For example, an employer may decide not to hire an applicant whose religious or political ideologies clash with theirs.
To sum it up, I believe that the personal information is useful for the employer because in most cases it is a very important indicator of a person’s personality and his comfort level with a job. It is, therefore, understandable why employers ask for this. However, there is a small risk that the employer could use this information against an employee.
Nowadays most organizations ask the candidates to provide the personal data such as their interests and marital status. It is believed by many that providing these information might be useful as employers can detect their employee’s behaviour at workplace but the few people believe it is not useful. In my opinion, providing the information is advantageous to the company but not the marital status. In my upcoming paragraphs, I will discuss both the views and will also provide reasons with relevant examples.
Employer is now choosing to gather information that might help them to recognize the employee’s behaviour. For example: their leadership skills, how well they can behave working in the team as these characteristics depend on their hobbies and interests. Recent survey suggests almost 90 percent organizations collect these data to identify the characteristics of the employee. Also, marital status can be useful to know how long and employee will be committed to an organization. For example: If someone got married recently and moved to new state, there is less chance to change the job frequently as employee has another big responsibility.
On the other hand, the few people do not feel comfortable to share their marital status with their employer as they feel how it is necessary to know about their marriage. For example: the few people are victim of dowery and other domestic violence issues and they do not want to talk about their marriage. Sometimes, their colleague might behave differently with them, and might consider them as a poor human being. In addition to the marital status, sometimes employer do not support the hobbies that their employee might have. As their hobbies and their personal interest also affect the productivity at work. For example: If an employee always prefer to go to the parties and do not spend much to work hard or improve the skills, then he or she might not be able to take up the responsibilities.
In the conclusion, hobbies and interests might be useful to foresee the employee’s behaviour so that they can decide how useful might be that candidate for their organization. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong to share their personal interests’s information but marital status is not at all useful as their colleague at workplace might behave differently.
This seems band 6.5 to me.