I think it's unethical to hit on co-workers, direct reports and especially interviewees, but there are two people on my team who met their spouses during an interview at previous companies.
Edit: I don't understand the downvotes. The people asking her to lawyer up do not understand employment law. Unethical behavior doesn't automatically mean it's illegal. The definition for discrimination is pretty strict. Unless you can prove the interviewer has a pattern of rejecting female candidates and then asking them for dates then there is no case here.
The other point I wanted to make is there are people who date their interviewers. Does that mean it's not sketchy? No. But the success stories serve as encouragement for this kind of behavior.
She had already not gotten the job. Not saying this is ok, but it doesn't sound like much pressure was applied.
That's part of the point. If it were okay to ask a job candidate out after an interview, the incentive for an unscrupulous interviewer who encounters an attractive candidate is to scuttle the interview so he can ask the candidate out later on.
That's just part of why this behavior is so highly objectionable.
Now, if he were the sole interviewer, or if he cut the interview short, or if he asked her DURING the interview, this would be a different conversation. But we don't know that.
Not every situation is the same, and it should not /always/ be "totally unacceptable" to ask someone out on a date. If they say no, and you pressure them, that's a different story.
Sometime you have to apply reason to a situation and understand the facts before casting judgment and making blanket statements. I have no reason to say that what this person did is acceptable; for all I know he WAS the only interviewer, and he did pressure her. But that's just it - we /don't/ know, and you cannot cast judgment to say that this is unacceptable as a result, without knowing more about the intricacies of the situation.
Generalizations like this are how we get into trouble in the first place.
More than the power dynamic, I think the stronger argument here is privacy. If you submit your information to a company to apply for a job, it's with the assumption that this information will only be used to evaluate and possibly hire you. Imagine if you submitted your resume somewhere, and they started sending you advertisements in the mail. You'd be outraged! Well, this is the same sort of thing. She gave this company her contact info so they could evaluate and possibly hire her, and here's a company insider using that information to contact her for a completely unrelated purpose. Spam, with unpleasant overtones of power.
If it were okay to ask a job candidate out after an interview, the incentive for an unscrupulous interviewer who encounters an attractive candidate is to scuttle the interview so he can ask the candidate out later on.
You haven't engaged that statement at all so I wonder why you responded to me.
The proper thing to do here if you really wanted to ask her out on a date is not to do it. There's plenty of other women out there you can meet in a more appropriate setting. There is no acceptable reason to turn a job interview into a date request.
He threw away the knife when he told her the was looking for someone with more experience.
Of course, if the job rejection is in any way related to the subsequent date-asking (or anything other than her alleged lack of experience), then the situation is different (and even more messed up).
Your crappy boss might not mean it that way. He might be asking with absolutely pure intent, with the idea that you'll say no if you don't want to come in, and you'd work extra because you like it, or believe in the company, or whatever. But it doesn't matter, the implication is still there, because of the power he holds.
Now, you get rejected from an interview. Shortly after, the interviewer asks you for a favor. There is an implied "if you do this for me, I might reconsider the rejection." Again, he might not mean it, but it's still there, because he has that power. Or at least you have good reason to think he has that power.
Is this claim falsifiable? Beats me. Ask a sociologist if you want to get scientific about it.
Both are those claims are simple to explain. Policemen clearly do arrest people if they don't pull over, and bosses clearly do penalize or fire people for not following orders (even unreasonable orders). And intention doesn't really come into play for either of those examples, because it's clear that both policemen and bosses intend to be issuing threats.
You haven't given any similar explanation for why asking someone on a date after interviewing and rejecting them carries the same implication. (For clarity, note that I don't approve of doing so, but for a different reason.)
I'm not sure what I can tell you besides, yes, yes they do, all the time.
I'm not saying that men don't regularly do that. I'm saying I have absolutely zero evidence of men doing that. It might happen, but right now I am much more sure that policemen arrest people for refusing to pull over nearly 100% of the time than I am that male employers retaliate against women employees/candidates who refuse a date.
Anyway, she was already told she wouldn't be hired there. The OP also doesn't mention that it was an exchange of favors (i.e. Go on a date with me and I'll get you this job).
Edit: these downvotes are fascinating. I'm amazed at how many people are apparently upset in the opposite direction from what I'd expect. Are you pissed off that it's inappropriate for an interviewer to ask an interviewee on a date? Are you just pissed off that it's being called out? Do you just disagree with the language being used to call it out? Do tell.
Would that have been easier for you to swallow? Because the fact that we, as a people, are so cynical as to assume the worst is, to me, incredibly fucking sad. :(
Note that it has nothing to do with assuming the worst. It's all about potential. For an extreme example, imagine a stranger almost fell off a bridge, and you're pulling them up. If you let go, they will fall to their death.
Is this an appropriate moment to ask them out on a date?
It's obvious to me that the answer is "no." You literally hold the power of life and death over this person. They have no idea what your intentions are. You've put them in a really tough spot and it's completely inappropriate.
Now, this has nothing do with assuming that you'd actually drop this person to their death if they rejected you. It's merely that there is the possibility. You might. Even if the odds are a million to one, put yourself in that person's shoes: would you take that risk? This is a total stranger. You don't know what they're like. It's possible they're a nutcase who freaks out whenever they're rejected. (I'm sure you've met people who do this.) Chances are good that they're a completely normal person... except, of course, that a normal person wouldn't be asking the question in the first place.
Now, the actual interview thing obviously is not on the same scale. There's no life-or-death situation (probably... stalking ending in murder is a real thing, and this guy knows where she lives) and it's fairly safe to say "no." But the potential is still there. We're not assuming the worst, merely acknowledging that the worst is possible, and that alone is enough.