I can think of no bigger red flag for a recruiter than "no, you may not talk to my current or former employers". Honesty is always the best policy.
Having worked as a recruiter on Wall Street, I can tell you that the reasons most interviews end badly come straight from the mouth or pen of the interviewee. You answer questions directly and truthfully, and the best answers are the shortest ones, like "yes" and "no". The interviewee is entitled to privacy regarding their private life and past employment history. Your job title, salary, and employment dates are the extent of such permissible information. Otherwise, you like your current employment and employers, and are simply trying to obtain advancement. Your current career path is stagnant for reasons related to the economic downturn (which is true no matter what business you're talking about these days), and looking elsewhere in the field is the only viable option. Any reference to disagreement in the workplace will earn you a downcheck and an invitation to apply again in a few months. When you do, you will not get an interview.
One of my duties as a commercial recruiter was to take HR managers to lunch regularly and discuss with them how I could provide them with better applicants. That which I am attempting to convey here comes directly out of those conversations
If you'd rather work for a company that believes they are entitled to such information, by all means be honest and complete; just understand that your job performance and continued employment should not be judged by events that occur outside the workplace. That is none of their business, no matter how convincingly they might try you convince you otherwise. That's a basic tenet of employment law, with which you appear unfamiliar. Using such information, or your declining, respectfully, to disclose it, in any way detrimental to your employment status is grounds for a wrongful termination/harassment/discrimination lawsuit. They know this and depend on your not knowing it.
Tell them that you'll gladly discuss such information with fellow employees, but not until you are one. Until then what you say is essentially little different from posting such information on a billboard. It can't get you a job, it can only lose you the opportunity.
If it troubles you that they ask and you feel it's to your advantage to volunteer private information, you are mistaken. Interviewers cannot give you a job, all they can do is screen you out or pass you along further, closer to people who will try further to screen you out, before you get anywhere near anyone who can actually make you a job offer.
HR's responsibility in the recruiting process is to shield the supervisor who initiated the employment requisition from 'undesirable applicants' and provide them with a small selection of qualified applicants. It's a gauntlet, and you don't get anywhere near a job offer until you have passed it successfully. For every one who does, literally hundreds don't.
It matters not whether gun ownership is a good or bad thing to the folks managing this gauntlet; it is a controversial issue, and interviewees who display ties to controversy are deemed undesirable applicants. They don't want you to bring anything but a warm, health body, and an undistracted, pliant intellect to the workplace.
"My life is my work and my family. I really don't have any hobbies, my family keeps me pretty busy. What things do we do? Family things mostly. I could get into detail, but its actually pretty mundane, and I'd really rather keep this interview brief and to the point".
Never discuss guns in the workplace; all it takes is an HR complaint from a 'Nervous Nellie' coworker and you could be on the street by afternoon. This actually happened to me once. The instant you find yourself compelled to go on the defensive, you know the door comes next.
Greg
