5 ms·

A person (A) discriminates against another (B) if A applies to B a provision, criterion or practice which is discriminatory in relation to a relevant protected

A person (A) discriminates against another (B) if A applies to B a provision, criterion or practice which is discriminatory in relation to a relevant protected characteristic of B’s. [1] I don't think that this is actually illegal, it is only indirect discrimination if it is based on a certain subset of criteria, of which the following list makes up: age - disability - gender reassignment - marriage and civil partnership - pregnancy and maternity - race - religion or belief - sex - sexual orientation And while you may consider age to be valid criteria, it isn't discriminating directly or indirectly against age, only against the amount of experience someone has in a particular field - the person could be 60 and only have started their career the year before. Personally, I think that the law is left up to interpretation, but in practice, if someone tried to use this law in court against this practice, I doubt there would be a positive outcome. [1] http://www.employmentlawsolutionsuk.com/Employment%20Law%20A-Z/Equality%20Act%202010.php http://www.employmentlawsolutionsuk.com/Employment%20Law%20A...

Peroni 14y ago
it isn't discriminating directly or indirectly against age... That's just it, it clearly discriminates against junior applicants who may have only a year or two of professional experience as a direct result of their age.
- shanelja 14y ago
  But unfortunately it's for a "good" [1] reason, most companies use recruitment agencies to find their employees, and most recruitment agencies are about as technically capable as my nan. They don't know how to judge the capabilities of an applicant, that is the real issue here, if recruiters were able to competently tell the difference between someone who was capable of doing the job, but had no proven track record, and someone with a proven and documented history in that position, then this wouldn't even be a requirement. Rather than using legislation to attack the companies, it's about time someone started a decent technology literate recruitment agency. [1] In their eyes
  - Peroni 14y ago
    I have to disagree. Our job board only hosts direct employer vacancies. We don't allow any recruitment agency listings and yet most of the jobs posted on our board have that stipulation in the spec so it's certainly not the fault of agency recruiters (for a change). it's about time someone started a decent technology literate recruitment agency There are a few of those floating around London and ultimately they make little to no difference. The main issue I'm highlighting in the post is the fact that the vast majority of people/companies have no idea that stipulating X number of years experience is detrimental for a number of reasons.
    - shanelja 14y ago
      Well surely you are in an advantageous position to do something about this? There are adverts on your website which have these minimum requirements on them [1] - why not match against this criteria and pop up a little warning about the supposed illegality of the situation or "This practice is highly detrimental to ..." It seems to me like if any company is in a position to start a trend here, yours is a pretty good place to start. [1] http://www.hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2013/3/25/dxi-limited-php-developer-position http://www.hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2013/3/25/dxi-limited-php-d...
      - Peroni 14y ago
        Fair point. We're releasing a bunch of new features in the next few weeks and 'job spec guidelines' are one that we're working on. A reference point for people posting new roles. I'm sure there's more we can do so I'll give it some thought.
        shanelja 14y ago
        How about a points rating system, for instance, the actual experience is a pretty big one, so that would be worth the most, but if the person has less time, but experience with individual parts of the stack they could "earn their application" like such: Object - value experience - 50 CSS3 - 10 Photoshop - 10 Go - 10 And so forth, so instead of it being a blanket ban and saying "it's 2 years experience or feck off" you could be saying "we normally only accept applications with a minimum of two years experience, but make exceptions for talented applications with experience in the following technologies, please tick any which apply. Then you let the company know that while they don't meet the minimum requirements for length of employment, they did score over the points threshold for "alternative" applicants. Just an idea :)

Peroni 14y ago

it isn't discriminating directly or indirectly against age... That's just it, it clearly discriminates against junior applicants who may have only a year or two of professional experience as a direct result of their age.

shanelja 14y ago
But unfortunately it's for a "good" [1] reason, most companies use recruitment agencies to find their employees, and most recruitment agencies are about as technically capable as my nan. They don't know how to judge the capabilities of an applicant, that is the real issue here, if recruiters were able to competently tell the difference between someone who was capable of doing the job, but had no proven track record, and someone with a proven and documented history in that position, then this wouldn't even be a requirement. Rather than using legislation to attack the companies, it's about time someone started a decent technology literate recruitment agency. [1] In their eyes
- Peroni 14y ago
  I have to disagree. Our job board only hosts direct employer vacancies. We don't allow any recruitment agency listings and yet most of the jobs posted on our board have that stipulation in the spec so it's certainly not the fault of agency recruiters (for a change). it's about time someone started a decent technology literate recruitment agency There are a few of those floating around London and ultimately they make little to no difference. The main issue I'm highlighting in the post is the fact that the vast majority of people/companies have no idea that stipulating X number of years experience is detrimental for a number of reasons.
  - shanelja 14y ago
    Well surely you are in an advantageous position to do something about this? There are adverts on your website which have these minimum requirements on them [1] - why not match against this criteria and pop up a little warning about the supposed illegality of the situation or "This practice is highly detrimental to ..." It seems to me like if any company is in a position to start a trend here, yours is a pretty good place to start. [1] http://www.hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2013/3/25/dxi-limited-php-developer-position http://www.hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2013/3/25/dxi-limited-php-d...
    - Peroni 14y ago
      Fair point. We're releasing a bunch of new features in the next few weeks and 'job spec guidelines' are one that we're working on. A reference point for people posting new roles. I'm sure there's more we can do so I'll give it some thought.
      - shanelja 14y ago
        How about a points rating system, for instance, the actual experience is a pretty big one, so that would be worth the most, but if the person has less time, but experience with individual parts of the stack they could "earn their application" like such: Object - value experience - 50 CSS3 - 10 Photoshop - 10 Go - 10 And so forth, so instead of it being a blanket ban and saying "it's 2 years experience or feck off" you could be saying "we normally only accept applications with a minimum of two years experience, but make exceptions for talented applications with experience in the following technologies, please tick any which apply. Then you let the company know that while they don't meet the minimum requirements for length of employment, they did score over the points threshold for "alternative" applicants. Just an idea :)