When trying to figure out if job candidates are a good fit, for hiring managers it's okay to be boring—a tip that extends to small talk you make during the interview to what kind of questions you ask about their background on the application.

Keep it simple and stick to concrete questions that focus on the ability to perform the job, said Andrea Stempel, associate general counsel and head of employment law for Ernst & Young, as part of a panel discussion Wednesday hosted by the Practising Law Institute that gave advice on how to avoid common pitfalls in the hiring process.

Don't ask about trips to Thailand, for instance, or what year he or she graduated from high school or go too far in an attempt to make personal connections when getting to know a candidate.

This type of practice, and others, can keep employers in the clear when it comes to litigation.

The experts on the panel, Stempel and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe lawyers Jill Rosenberg and Lisa Lupion, offered advice about the changing landscape in hiring. Here are four takeaways.

Keeping It Simple During the Interview

Be careful during interviews even with seemingly innocent questions as some areas of inquiry could be problematic, Stempel said.

Asking about a candidate's graduation year in discussing education could elicit information about a candidate's age. Suggesting that someone is “overqualified” for a position could give rise to an age discrimination claim. Questions about availability on weekends could lead to religious accommodation issues. Even questions about birthplace or language proficiency could provide unnecessary and inappropriate information regarding national origin or citizenship.

Stempel also said she is wary of a new trend of video resumes. “Less is more early in the application process,” she said.

Navigating the Social Media Legal Landscape

Social media has become a factor in the hiring process. The majority of hiring managers, roughly 60 percent according to a recent CareerBuilder survey, use search engines to research candidates. Of those who looked into social networking sites, 49 percent found content that caused them not to hire the candidate and 32 percent said they found content that made them more likely to hire the candidate, according to the survey.

“Employers find these tools useful,” Rosenberg said. She warned, however, there are privacy issues and managers should only look at public profiles and avoid asking applicants for passwords. As a result of that trend, she said many states and cities banned employers from providing access to private pages.

“The biggest risk is that it provides too much information from an employer point of view,” Rosenberg said. There is a hazy line with photos posted. A picture of someone drinking may not be cause but other actions, like illegal drug use or “dancing naked on a table,” could show poor judgment and potential harm to the company. “This is an area where there is a lot of gray,” she said. She added, “It's important to implement best practices. It's unrealistic to completely ban managers and human resources from social media. They will be doing it anyway.”

Rosenberg advised there should be a policy and protocol to screen applicants in a uniform manner, create a list of the social media used to search each applicant and determine what types of lawful information to obtain. She also suggests to keep searches to the job-related information and even conduct the search after the interview.