Old face job ad 'discrimination'

The BBC has found that the government’s Universal Jobmatch website, and Reed – one of the UK’s biggest employment agencies – are likely to be breaking anti-age discrimination laws. How do their adverts compare to yours?  

On both sites, hundreds of employers say they want "recent graduates", which lawyers say implies they are looking for younger applicants.  

A typical example of wording used in job adverts reads: "My client is recruiting a recent graduate to join their extremely busy team. You should be looking for a career, have good customer service skills and good administration skills including data entry." 

A more blatant example: "We are always looking to recruit talented, ambitious young people who may fit well into one of our progressive thinking departments such as media, including social media, TV, press officer or other departments such as office administration," 

Lawyers specialising in age discrimination cases have said that these statements are unlikely to be lawful. Although you can justify some forms of age discrimination, it is difficult to see why an employer needs a recent graduate when someone who graduated 10 or 20 years ago wouldn't be equally suitable.

'Unconscious bias'

The government is trying to encourage people to work longer and retire later, but older jobseekers say they often feel ignored by employers.

Simon Silvie, 57, a former senior manager for a national IT firm, from Barrow, Cumbria, said he had applied for hundreds of jobs after being made redundant 18 months ago, but had rarely been invited to an interview. "I would say it is age discrimination," he said. "However, it is so hard to prove. I think that the people who are perpetrating this don't even realise that they are doing it. It's an unconscious bias against age."

Staff training

Have you trained staff on unconscious bias – what it is and what they can do about it? Take a look at publicity for my training course on unconscious bias, which you can download here.

I frequently run workshops specifically targeted for staff involved in recruitment and selection. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you are interested in me running this workshop at your organisation

You can read the full article from the BBC here