Discrimination through ageism can start early on in a person’s career through improper job advertisement wording, illegal interviewing practices, and biased or corrupted selection processes. Businesses and organizations are constantly advertising for open positions and looking to hire new employees to fill their growing business needs. While they may have had plenty of training on HR policies and hiring practices, they may not be aware that they have placed job advertisements with discriminatory wording, participated in interviews where they have crossed the line in conversation or questioning, or have even made selections based on illegal criteria.
Companies use many different platforms to post job listings such as websites like Monster.com …show more content…
Some examples of this are staying away from keywords and phrases that is directly related to an age preference such as: “seeking someone high energy” or “seeking recent high school/college graduates”. This type of language suggests the employer is only seeking young professionals for their organization. Even if the company was not aware that certain language in job advertisements were considered ageism or discriminatory based on age, they still may have placed themselves at risk of being sued, fined or sanctioned by the Age Discrimination in employment Act, and state agencies such as in Florida, under the Florida Civil Human Rights Act. government or _____whatever agency polices this sort of …show more content…
Several examples come from just the past few years’ when major companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Yahoo all had “new” or “recent college graduates (specifying graduating year)” listed in their job posting for open positions. Raymond Peeler, a senior attorney advisory with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) stated that what they were advertising was illegal, as it directly violated the law regulating workplace discrimination as it would deter the older applicants from applying (Kopytoff, 2014). The difficultly that some organizations face is when a job may very well be physically demanding, or one in which there could be an age limitation that could create an occupational qualification, meaning that in those specific cases it would be allowable to post, interview and hire someone based on very specific age or physical requirements. However, the burden of proving that this is an occupational qualification lies with the organization and they would have to provide proof of this request. One example of a job that qualifies under an occupational age limitation would be an airline pilot, as they are required to retire at the age of 65 due to safety concerns. This issue was raised by the EEOC who filed an age discrimination claim against ExxonMobil for forcing pilots to retire based on their age. The claim was filed in 2006,
Companies use many different platforms to post job listings such as websites like Monster.com …show more content…
Some examples of this are staying away from keywords and phrases that is directly related to an age preference such as: “seeking someone high energy” or “seeking recent high school/college graduates”. This type of language suggests the employer is only seeking young professionals for their organization. Even if the company was not aware that certain language in job advertisements were considered ageism or discriminatory based on age, they still may have placed themselves at risk of being sued, fined or sanctioned by the Age Discrimination in employment Act, and state agencies such as in Florida, under the Florida Civil Human Rights Act. government or _____whatever agency polices this sort of …show more content…
Several examples come from just the past few years’ when major companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Yahoo all had “new” or “recent college graduates (specifying graduating year)” listed in their job posting for open positions. Raymond Peeler, a senior attorney advisory with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) stated that what they were advertising was illegal, as it directly violated the law regulating workplace discrimination as it would deter the older applicants from applying (Kopytoff, 2014). The difficultly that some organizations face is when a job may very well be physically demanding, or one in which there could be an age limitation that could create an occupational qualification, meaning that in those specific cases it would be allowable to post, interview and hire someone based on very specific age or physical requirements. However, the burden of proving that this is an occupational qualification lies with the organization and they would have to provide proof of this request. One example of a job that qualifies under an occupational age limitation would be an airline pilot, as they are required to retire at the age of 65 due to safety concerns. This issue was raised by the EEOC who filed an age discrimination claim against ExxonMobil for forcing pilots to retire based on their age. The claim was filed in 2006,