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What's between the lines on your resume?

Joann S. Lublin's column on resumes in the WSJ yesterday mentioned that employment seekers are being taught how to cover up or hide

imprisonment
cancer
alcoholism
drugs
spousal abuse
lack of a high school degree

Even in the early 1990s at Ohio State, we weren't allowed to ask if the candidate had an arrest or conviction because that was considered discriminatory against minority males.

We weren't supposed to notice if she was pale as a ghost, weighed about 100 lbs, had no hair, and looked like she couldn't lift a heavy journal

We weren't allowed to ask how she would navigate our narrow, pre-1950 stacks in her wheelchair.

If he held the application one inch from his face, we weren't to ponder how he would fill out the hand written time sheets for our student staff, or check their accuracy if a student did it for him.

If his skin was leathery and tan with sunny high lights in his hair and his most recent job in a library was 20 years ago shelving books at Capital University, we were not to assume he didn't desperately want a career change from riding mowers for the grounds department.

We weren't supposed to tell a PhD candidate in Asian literature she was over qualified for a serials check-in job, even if we knew she'd die of boredom before the first paycheck.

We weren't supposed to notice that a candidate was 7 months pregnant and had formula spit up on her shoulder.

I suspect more rules for interviewing have been added in the last 15 years.