Can Ageless Application Forms Beat Discrimination?

It isn't just employers who would need re educating, We employ drivers to collect and deliver fleet vehicles. We cannot get insurance for anyone under 25 (not that we would want anyone that young as most would have poor driving skills, and we cannot get insurance for anyone over 70. Age would have to be on our application form to ensure we do not have anyone driving without insurance.

Basically, this legislation appears unenforceable.

If an employer wishes to, they can give any or no reason for not accepting an applicant. Irrespective of what the application form does or does not have on it, when a candidate gets to interview stage, age will usually be quite obvious (within about 5 years for most people).

Government and company money could be better spent on things that can be enforced.

So if someone sends in an application form that only has one previous job listed with no dates, how are employers supposed to know whether this person has been:

a - A loyal, high achieving employee for many years who really knows the way their previous company worked.

b - A really young person who has been in the previous job for less than a year and is 'jumping' from one to the other with no real idea of what they want.

or

c - A slacker who has just been coasting for several years in a dead end job not really bothering with it.

And what about dates of courses attended. How do we know if the manual handling course an employee took is the latest one or several years old? First Aid certification, Fire marshalling courses, software packages learned. All of these things need to have a date or someway of telling employers how up to date this is.

The person applying for the job could have a basic computer course certificate. Is he/she young and eager to learn or is he/she an older return to work person and may possibly have difficulty with IT?

I don't think it is possible to apply for a job and then be interviewed without giving some indication of how old you are.

It's just not fair on both employers and applicants.

If there is no chronological career history how do we spot if there has been a break in employment, and the reason?

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Age discrimination is an issue that needs addresssing, but not by such an ill-thought out and superficial approach. Confusing employers and creating unnecessary irritation is counter-productive. Also, there are circumstances in which age is relevant to an employer's needs. Further there are more and more instances in which maturity and concommitant experience are in demand and are a boon to employers. Anyway, would someone really want to work in a company that practised ageism and in which the working atmosphere is intolerable?

Educate employers to appreciate the benefits of experience and the wisdom it brings. Don't dress up a benefit with suspicion!

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