Should you answer EEO questions on job applications?

Near the end of most tech applications comes a block of questions about your gender, race, veteran status, and disability, usually under a heading like "Voluntary Self-Identification". We read the forms behind the open internship and new grad postings we could reach to see which of these questions employers ask, how often they require an answer, and whether you can always decline.

What we measured

On November 9, 2026, we read the self-identification sections of the Greenhouse application forms behind the postings open on November 8 on the SimplifyJobs internship and new grad trackers, the feed behind Arial's job board. Greenhouse forms, including that section, can be read without an account: 1,006 forms at 328 companies, 614 for internships and 392 for new grad roles, leaving out contract AI-training gigs and AI-training firms. We counted each self-identification question, whether the form required it, and whether its options included a way to decline. Ashby forms are not counted: none of the Ashby form data we read included these questions, which employers there can ask separately. (SimplifyJobs internship tracker, November 8, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, with the Greenhouse and Ashby application forms, read that day; SimplifyJobs new grad tracker, November 8, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, with the Greenhouse and Ashby application forms, read that day; Greenhouse Job Board API documentation (job questions))

Which EEO questions tech application forms ask

642 of the 1,006 forms, 64 percent, asked at least one of these questions: 60 percent of internship forms and 70 percent of new grad forms, at 193 of the 328 companies. Most came from Greenhouse's standard section, which asks gender, race and ethnicity, and veteran status, and sometimes disability, on 465 forms. More than 200 forms carried a separate demographic survey the employer added, often Greenhouse's own U.S. Standard demographic questions, instead or as well, and those surveys are where the rarer questions live: every question about sexual orientation, transgender identity, or age range, and a few about neurodiversity, first language, and religion. (SimplifyJobs internship tracker, November 8, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, with the Greenhouse and Ashby application forms, read that day; SimplifyJobs new grad tracker, November 8, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, with the Greenhouse and Ashby application forms, read that day; Greenhouse Job Board API documentation (job questions))

How often an answer is required

Rarely, and never without a way out. Only 25 of the 193 companies that asked made any of these questions required, on 97 forms, 37 of them from Graphcore alone; DoorDash, Verkada, Klaviyo, and Samsung were among the others. All 296 required questions offered an option that declines, worded like "I don't wish to answer" or "Decline To Self Identify". Nearly every question on every form offered a way to decline, also worded "I elect not to self-identify", "Not Declared", or "Prefer not to say". The few without one were optional, such as Schonfeld's race and Hispanic or Latino questions, so you skip those by leaving them blank. (SimplifyJobs internship tracker, November 8, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, with the Greenhouse and Ashby application forms, read that day; SimplifyJobs new grad tracker, November 8, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, with the Greenhouse and Ashby application forms, read that day; Greenhouse Job Board API documentation (job questions))

Why employers ask, and who sees your answers

These questions became standard because companies with federal contracts had to record applicants' race and gender where possible, and invite them to self-identify as protected veterans or people with disabilities. That changed in 2026. The Department of Labor removed the regulations behind the race, ethnicity, and gender records, effective October 26, 2026; the executive order they carried out, Executive Order 11246, had been revoked in January 2025. It also removed the rule that contractors ask about disability and discontinued its form, CC-305, effective September 21, 2026, concluding that the question, even with an "I do not want to answer" option, is a disability inquiry the Americans with Disabilities Act forbids before a job offer. Under the federal contractor rules, one requirement remains: a contractor with 50 or more employees and a federal contract of $200,000 or more must still invite applicants, before an offer, to say whether they are a protected veteran, and the invitation must say the information is voluntary, will be kept confidential, and that refusing "will not subject the applicant to any adverse treatment". (U.S. Department of Labor, "Rescission of Executive Order 11246 Implementing Regulations", final rule, 91 FR 54444, effective October 26, 2026; U.S. Department of Labor, "Modifications to the Regulations Implementing Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act", final rule, 91 FR 54482, effective September 21, 2026; U.S. Department of Labor, "Modifications to the Regulations Implementing the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act", final rule, 91 FR 54234, effective September 21, 2026; 41 CFR 60-300.42, Invitation to self-identify (protected veterans), as in force November 5, 2026)

Employers without that duty may still ask, to check whether their hiring treats groups fairly, and EEOC guidance says self-identification forms "should be kept separately from the application, and should not be a basis for employment decisions". On Greenhouse's standard questions, the answers are anonymized: "It is not possible to associate responses to EEOC questions with individual candidate applications," Greenhouse says, and the employer's users see only anonymized data. That covers Greenhouse's own EEO and demographic sections. A question an employer writes into the main application form is visible according to how the employer set it up. Greenhouse also stopped showing its disability question by default on September 19, 2026, which matches what we found: its standard section asked about disability on only 29 forms, while separate demographic surveys asked on 169. (EEOC, Questions and Answers on the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (self-identification forms); Greenhouse Support, "Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) report", read November 9, 2026; SimplifyJobs internship tracker, November 8, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, with the Greenhouse and Ashby application forms, read that day; SimplifyJobs new grad tracker, November 8, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, with the Greenhouse and Ashby application forms, read that day)

Should you answer?

• Answering is voluntary on every form we read, and every required question offered a way to decline.
• On Greenhouse's standard EEO section, the hiring team cannot tie your answer to your application.
• If you want an employer's diversity or veteran hiring efforts to count you, answer; if you would rather not say, decline. Neither choice is supposed to affect how your application is judged.
• Treat an EEO question that sits inside the main application, rather than in a separate self-identification section, as one the hiring team may see.

On Arial, the agent applies for you: when you tap Apply on a job hosted on Greenhouse, Ashby, Workday, Oracle, or Indeed, it fills in the employer's form from your resume and profile and submits it. It never self-identifies for you: it leaves optional EEO questions blank, and on a required one it picks the option that declines, such as "I don't wish to answer". If you want to self-identify, apply to that job on the employer's site yourself.

EEO questions show up on most tech applications, but almost all of them are optional, and the rare required ones always let you decline. Answer them or not as you choose; the rest of the form is what the hiring team reads.