Beware at interview - sensitive information sought from candidate - werkgeversreview Anonieme werknemer bij Rothschild & Co

Note: I'm writing a review of the recruitment process for a Team Assistant role in their Wealth Management business. I am not a current/former employee. During a half-hour initial telephone call with a Rothschild & Co recruitment associate, she managed to gather both my age and whether I was interested in hearing about the maternity leave offering.  I can't say whether this was her intention, but whether intentional or not, gathering this information as part of screening candidates for a role either directly or indirectly strikes me as a little suspect.  She briefly ran through the benefits on offer and then specifically asked me whether I wanted to hear about the maternity benefits.  I was a bit surprised at the question.  A 'yes' would tell her that I was planning on going on maternity leave at some point and could leave me open to my application being discarded in favour of someone who was not going to go on mat leave.  Not really feeling comfortable at giving an answer to that question, I said I was more interested in knowing about the pension offering.  I had nothing to hide, as such, more that I felt that it was not an appropriate question to ask someone at an interview.  She informed me that the pension offering depended on age and then said if I wanted to tell her my age then she could tell me the offering for that age bracket (these weren't verbatim the words she used but I understood that in order to get the right information I would have to tell her my age).  I was left feeling a little uncomfortable after the call knowing that my answers could leave me open to being discriminated against. I suggest Rothschild & Co advises their recruitment associates on how to give the information on benefits without putting candidates in a situation where they have to divulge personal/sensitive information. If it's useful to anyone who doesn't feel comfortable divulging the information above and if I recall correctly, the mat leave offering is 26 weeks on 100% pay and then 12 weeks on State mat allowance.  The pension offering for the 41-45 age bracket: core contribution from the company is 8%.  If an employee contributes 5% then the company will match that 5%, so a total contribution of 18%. In the next age bracket up the company core contribution rises to 12%. Long core working hours: 8.30am-6pm. Poor remote working offering: 5 days per week in the office for probationary period (6 months) then 1 day per week WFH.