> No interviewer in the US would dare ask about vices

I actually saw a job application recently asking to confirm that you haven’t used any nicotine products in 6months in order to be hired. This was very strange as it was a 100% remote job so maybe it was HR/copy paste but the wording was bizarre . They made it clear that it was about nicotine and not just tobacco and explicitly called out things like gums or patches.

I did not continue the application. I assume now it was some useless virtue signaling related to young people and vapes or something. I’m not even sure they’d seriously test people, but it’s still ridiculous that according to what was written you could be denied employment or lose your job because you had a cigarette outside the bar last weekend or have been using nicotine gum to quit smoking

I have sat across from recruiters at a previous job, in California of all places, that would quite frequently ask these very questions. The question is, how would you prove you were asked these questions if you were being interviewed in a state that has 2 party consent laws for recording?

Ask the other candidates, it’s not so hard with glassdoor etc. The questions are a red flag, so you’d never want to work there but equally some free money from a discrimination lawsuit wouldn’t hurt.

If you are in a single party consent state, you can legally record conversations you are involved in without informing the other participants. (California is not one of those states, sadly, but if you are in a state that does, and are interviewing for a California company via zoom or a phone call, I believe you can still record it legally)

Question #3 offers a great opportunity to make the interviewer feel very uncomfortable. Tell them your bad habit is sticking boogers on your keyboard.

"My bad habit is hacking into the personal computers of interviewers who decide not to give me a job."