Can you use the word energetic in a job advert?

Summary

The Equality Act of 2010 makes it illegal for employers to consider a candidate's age when hiring them, with the exception of situations in which the employer may demonstrate that their actions or judgments are objectively justified.

The Obligations Implicit in the Law

It has been illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of age in the arrangements that they make for the purpose of deciding to whom they provide or do not offer employment since the 1st of October 2006, when the laws against age discrimination became effective. During each and every phase of the hiring process, prospective employees are protected by the act, which is now codified as part of the Equality Act of 2010.

Employers are, however, permitted to seek to justify actions and decisions that are age discriminatory if they can show that their actions were appropriate and necessary in relation to the achievement of a legitimate business goal. This exception only applies if the employer can demonstrate that their actions were appropriate and necessary in relation to the achievement of the goal.

With effect from April 6, 2011, the general exception that allowed employers (if they wished) to reject external job applicants on the grounds of age if they were 65 or over at the time they applied for employment, or if they would have reached age 65 within six months of their application, was abolished. Previously, this general exception allowed employers to reject external job applicants on the grounds of age if they were 65 or over at the time they applied for employment. Under the past, any job candidate who was rejected on the basis of age in these circumstances was not qualified to submit a claim for age discrimination to an employment tribunal. However, they are now able to do so.

Checklist

Employers have a responsibility to take steps to ensure that all of the managers and staff members who participate in the interviewing and selection process have received adequate training and are aware that age should not be a consideration in the selection process.

It is important that recruiters understand that it is against the law to discriminate based on age at any step of the hiring process, beginning with the posting of open positions and continuing through final selection and the offer of employment.

Through appropriate training, employees should be made aware that there are two types of age discrimination: direct and indirect.

Direct age discrimination occurs when a job applicant is treated less favorably than other job applicants are treated or would be treated, and the applicant's age is wholly or partially the reason for the less favorable treatment. Indirect age discrimination occurs when a job applicant is treated less favorably than other job applicants are treated or would be treated.

When an employer applies a requirement or criteria to all job candidates, that employer is engaging in indirect age discrimination since the requirement or criterion puts job seekers in a specific age group at a disadvantage. For instance, if applicants for a job were required to have a certain minimum number of years of experience before they could be considered for the position, this would be an indirect form of discrimination against younger candidates because younger people are less likely than older people to have the necessary length of experience.

According to the laws, it is also against the law to discriminate against someone on the basis of their perceived age. One example of this would be to turn down a job candidate on the grounds that they seem to be either too young or too old for the position.

An employer may try to objectively defend age-discriminatory actions or age-discriminatory criteria in the hiring process by citing certain studies or statistics.

In order for an employer to objectively justify age discrimination, whether it be direct or indirect, the company would need to:

Determine a valid organizational goal that will serve as the foundation for a specific criteria or criterion that will be used as part of the recruiting process, and

demonstrate that the condition or criteria was acceptable and required for the purpose of reaching that goal.

Among other examples of acceptable goals in the recruiting process are the following:

individual health and safety; nonetheless, this will not enable employers to make broad generalizations, such as that persons over the age of 55 are not capable of doing strenuous physical labor.

economic considerations such as the requirements of the company and its productivity

substantial training requirements for a specific position, applicable to job applicants who are getting near to the age of retirement

the need of working for a certain amount of time before one may retire.

needs in terms of planning for personnel

The process of hiring new employees should start with an in-depth review of the duties and responsibilities of the open position, followed by the development of a person specification. (Also check out the Employers' Factsheet on How to Write a Person Specification and/or Job Advertisement that Does Not Discriminate Based on Age.)

The employer ought to make certain that any requirement for candidates to have a degree qualification and/or a maximum or minimum number of years of experience can be shown to be relevant and necessary for effective performance of the job in question, as these requirements would constitute indirect age discrimination against candidates who are either older or younger respectively. (You may also check out the Employers' Factsheet on How to Avoid Discriminatory Requirements for Job Applicants to have Certain Qualifications and/or Lengths of Experience for more information.)

Personal preference or opinion will not be sufficient to justify an age-discriminatory decision or the use of age-discriminatory criteria as part of the selection process. Likewise, age-discriminatory criteria cannot be used as part of the selection process. Take, for instance:

It would be against the law for the management of a fashionable youthful fashion shop to give priority to younger employment candidates in the notion that this would help to the business goal of attracting more clients in their late teens and 20s.

It is not permissible for an employer who is looking to hire sales workers to intentionally seek to put an older individual into a sales job because of the idea that the company's clients would likely see an older person as more competent or trustworthy.

A bank that wanted to place its new recruits on a training program designed to groom its future managers could not give applicants in their 20s and 30s preferential treatment over applicants in their 40s and 50s on the grounds that it wanted to place the new recruits on the program in order to groom its future managers.

It is not possible for the person who is in charge of determining who should be appointed to the role of television presenter on a children's show to attempt to recruit a young person on the grounds that such a person may appeal more strongly to young viewers of the program.

Employers should be careful to avoid age limitations and ageist wording in job advertisements and should be cognizant of the picture conveyed by phrases such as "mature," "energetic," or "senior" in order to avoid alienating potential candidates. (Also check out the Employers' Factsheet on How to Write a Person Specification and/or Job Advertisement that Does Not Discriminate Based on Age.)

Although the act of requesting this information does not in and of itself constitute age discrimination, the information could subsequently be used (whether consciously or subconsciously) to make a decision that is age discriminatory. Application forms should not require job applicants to disclose their age or date of birth.

Instead, age-related inquiries should be placed in a separate form that is not utilized as part of the recruiting process (but which the HR department of the company might use for monitoring reasons).

Employers may also decide that, as an additional safety measure, they will not ask job candidates to indicate the dates on which they attended high school, college, or university, as well as the dates on which they worked in the past, on the application forms that they use. In the latter scenario, the form could merely need information on the duration of each job term.

Employers should not be swayed by the ages of the individual candidates when making judgments on the short list for positions; rather, they should compare the experiences of each applicant with the requirements given in the person specification.

When conducting recruiting interviews, staff members should under no circumstances inquire inquiries about applicants' ages.

The following are some examples of age-based discriminatory questions:

if the candidate is older, you should ask them how they would feel about reporting to a younger supervisor.

asking a prospective employee of a lower age how they would react to being in charge of employees of a higher age

Asking someone younger than you who has applied for a management position if they believe they are mature enough to handle the responsibilities of a senior position

if you are hiring older people for a job that requires physical labor, you should ask them if they believe they are "still fit enough" to handle the responsibilities of the position.

pointing out to a candidate who is older that they would have trouble adjusting to change or learning a new computer system

Interviewees should be asked if they believe they would work better with a team composed of younger or older persons (which implies that the interviewer thinks that age differences are likely to be a problem)

If you ask a candidate what they like to do in their free time, they could reveal a sport or hobby (such being a member of a "over-40s club") that draws attention to their age. You should avoid this line of questioning since it might have an unintended consequence. Instead of asking applicants about their work history, the interviewer could ask them about any extracurricular activities they participate in outside of work that they believe may have some bearing on their fitness for the position.

Instead than concentrating just on a candidate's official credentials or length of experience, interviewers should make it a point to inquire about the candidate's breadth of experience, as well as their competences, skills, and accomplishments.

It is essential to make a distinction between the length of experience and the breadth of experience since the former is a criteria that has the potential to implicitly discriminate against older people. For instance, "five years of experience" for a human resources officer may refer to five years during which the person's job remained unchanged and involved only recruitment, or it may refer to five years during which the individual worked in recruitment, employee relations, performance appraisal, salary administration, training, and policy development on a progressive basis in an environment that was constantly changing.

Interviewers should make it a goal to become aware of their own subjective points of view, attitudes, and biases, and they should practice learning how to set these things aside while conducting interviews (however difficult this might be).

The questions that are asked of candidates need to be organized in such a way as to require them to provide real examples of their experiences and accomplishments. For instance, a common interview question is to inquire about a candidate's past experiences and request them to describe a time when they had to interact with a colleague or client who was challenging in some manner, as well as how they really handled the circumstance.

Conclusions and judgments regarding candidates should be reasonable, explicable, and unaffected by variables that are not relevant to the discussion.

In order to reduce the likelihood of age discrimination occurring during the selection process, it is best if more than one individual is engaged.

The interviewer is responsible for putting out a report after each and every recruiting interview (ideally on a pro-forma designed for that purpose). In the report, each applicant need to be awarded points (for instance, on a scale ranging from 1 to 5) in accordance with categories like "degree of relevant technical knowledge" and "relevance of experience," which are capable of being evaluated in an objective manner. In the end, the position should be given to the person who received the best score throughout the interview process.

Clear records should be kept of all selection interviews. These records should demonstrate that the interviewers focused on the relevant skills, competence, achievements, and abilities of the candidates (rather than, for example, the length of experience), and they should state the rationale behind the decision to appoint one candidate while rejecting the others.

Any health and fitness requirements that are implemented shouldn't be any stricter than what is really necessary for the work. If the employer decides to conduct pre-employment medical examinations, such examinations and the criteria that are used should be the same for all potential workers of the same age who are applying for the same sorts of jobs.

The recruiting process as a whole need to be founded on an approach that is objective, methodical, and organized, and employers need to make sure this is the case.

Employers that utilize the "milk round" to attract new graduates right after they graduate from university should guarantee that there are other options for prospects to apply for their graduate programs. One such alternative would be to advertise in the press.

The process of recruitment need to make use of a number of different approaches. For instance, if a company insisted on doing all of their hiring processes online, this may be seen as an indirect form of age discrimination against applicants who are older (who might be less likely than younger candidates to use this method of job seeking).