Age discrimination in job applications

Grolschevik

[This is purely academic, not a request for advice! It's inspired by the Law Society Gazette's refusal to take certain recruitment ads that specify years of PQE]

Most employers these days will not ask straight-out for an applicant's date of birth.

However, many will require a candidate to specify the dates of educational attainment, such as "BA (1997)". From that info, an employer can derive the minimum age someone is, more or less.

Further to this, many online application forms have the 'qualification dates' as fields that are required to be completed, or else the application cannot proceed.

Two questions:

Is the request for graduation dates a potentially sneaky way around the "don't ask age" thing for employers?

And, given that most such online application forms end with the requirement to affirm that all info is correct, would a fudging or outright misrepresention of such dates in the application trigger the 'summary dismissal' or similar stuff in the application form small print?

Cookie_Monster

Is the request for graduation dates a potentially sneaky way around the "don't ask age" thing for employers?

it can be but just because you qualified 2 years ago doesn't mean you can't be 50 and have gone back to education.
Why would you not provide dates of when and where you worked or received qualifications on your CV? Easy to get a ball park from it but I'd simply bin a CV that didn't have that info anyway.

blackwhite

Grolschevik wrote: »

[This is purely academic, not a request for advice! It's inspired by the Law Society Gazette's refusal to take certain recruitment ads that specify years of PQE]

Most employers these days will not ask straight-out for an applicant's date of birth.

However, many will require a candidate to specify the dates of educational attainment, such as "BA (1997)". From that info, an employer can derive the minimum age someone is, more or less.

Further to this, many online application forms have the 'qualification dates' as fields that are required to be completed, or else the application cannot proceed.

Two questions:

Is the request for graduation dates a potentially sneaky way around the "don't ask age" thing for employers?

And, given that most such online application forms end with the requirement to affirm that all info is correct, would a fudging or outright misrepresention of such dates in the application trigger the 'summary dismissal' or similar stuff in the application form small print?

In my field of work (and I assume many others as well), many third-level institutions have arrangements with professional bodies whereby specific degree courses will be designed to fulfil professional requirements also, and can then be used by any graduates to obtain exemptions from some, or all, of the professional exam requirements.
I'd imagine, in these kind of jobs, the year of qualification can be important for determining if the person has the exemptions or not.

Glass fused light

Your CV will give this away either way as even if you have gone back to education you will still put your Pre qualification employment history down.

Fudging any provable fact such as qualification or date even if not a specific requirement would be gross misconduct by fraud in any recent job I worked in.

If you got sacked or not might depend on the level you worked at, juniors may be given leeway but no promotion etc would happen. If the employee was in any position of trust or higher management hr would start the process to exit you.

Grolschevik

So in reality, the oft-repeated advice to leave date of birth off CVs and the like is useless/irrelevant.

Glass fused light

It depends on what age you are the older the easier it is to calculate age.

If the first job was 2000 or 1990 Etc, and all roles were in a particular field add 4 years for "college" and 18 for the leaving and youve got a good guess of age .
If you have had a large number of short term jobs or broad experience and only detail the last 10 years with a "others available in request" or some such it may be less obvious. I don't know how the 10 yr CV would work but someone I know suggested it to someone in IT.

Grolschevik

Grolschevik wrote: »

So in reality, the oft-repeated advice to leave date of birth off CVs and the like is useless/irrelevant.

Well leaving it off forces somebody to actually read your CV, and perhaps they might see something interesting there. It does avoid the scenario of somebody only looking at applications from people of a certain age.

However, like a lot of politically correct rules, its function is more to make a statement than actually achieve something in itself.

Mrs OBumble

Glass fused light wrote: »

Your CV will give this away either way as even if you have gone back to education you will still put your Pre qualification employment history down.

But you don't actually have to put it down. Some people leave off their first few jobs, nothing wrong with this unless you are actually lying.

ohnonotgmail

isnt this just delaying the inevitable? They are going to figure out how old you are if they call you to interview. Unless you have a painting in the attic of course.

L1011

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

isnt this just delaying the inevitable? They are going to figure out how old you are if they call you to interview. Unless you have a painting in the attic of course.

I've been offered a job over a phone interview before. Had been recommended by an existing staff member. Its not uncommon in technology/telecoms jobs - and neither is rampant ageism.

ohnonotgmail

L1011 wrote: »

I've been offered a job over a phone interview before. Had been recommended by an existing staff member. Its not uncommon in technology/telecoms jobs - and neither is rampant ageism.

so presumably they had a good idea of how old you were when you were hired. My point is simply that leaving your age off your cv won't prevent age discrimination.

L1011

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

so presumably they had a good idea of how old you were when you were hired. My point is simply that leaving your age off your cv won't prevent age discrimination.

I didn't take the job, the failed my side of the interview :pac: I would imagine they asked the reference-giver or interpreted off my CV yes. Don't have an age on it as I found it caused trouble when I was 19 and going for more senior roles than many recruiters would even consider for. Ageism cuts both ways, although you grow out of one!

Manach

There was a recent discussion on Slashdot in regards the problem in the US over this in IT: link.

Mrs OBumble

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

isnt this just delaying the inevitable? They are going to figure out how old you are if they call you to interview. Unless you have a painting in the attic of course.

Nope. Boots sell this great stuff that hides the grey. I'm sure my new boss has no idea of my age.