Age Discrimination

[Rufus BugleWeed]

PART 1625--AGE DISCRIMINATION IN EMPLOYMENT ACT--Table of Contents

Subpart A--Interpretations

Sec. 1625.4 Help wanted notices or advertisements.
(a) When help wanted notices or advertisements contain terms and
phrases such as age 25 to 35, young, college student, recent college
graduate, boy, girl, or others of a similar nature, such a term or
phrase deters the employment of older persons and is a violation of the
Act, unless one of the exceptions applies. Such phrases as age 40 to 50,
age over 65, retired person, or supplement your pension discriminate
against others within the protected group and, therefore, are prohibited
unless one of the exceptions applies.

I believe that Junior and no more than two years experience matches the above paragraph from the Age Discrimination Act of 1967. I am requesting that this thread in jobs offered be censored.

[Jessica Sant]

"up to 2 years" may be pushing it -- but if you have issue with the word "Junior" you have a lot of work ahead of you, a search on monster for "Junior developer" resulted in over 200 hits.
edited the offending post
[ April 01, 2004: Message edited by: Jessica Sant ]

[fred rosenberger]

I did not see the original post, but i don't understand why saying "no more than two years" is Ageist at all. If my father decided to become a programmer (he's not one now), he'd have less than two years, and he's in his mid 60's. And somebody who graduated college at age 22 a year ago with a degree in CS would also have less than two years.
I really don't see what experience has to do with your age.
just my 2cents

[HS Thomas]

I guess it would be Ageist in the sense that anyone with more than two years need not apply.
Anyone more than two years experience should be applying for a more Senior position . i.e. with added skills - Testing,Design etc.

[Teddy Moose]

from where I stand -- you should all be ashamed you didn't see the huge injustice being done to the rest of the animal kingdom. They should make keyboards more hoof/paw-friendly so we can apply too.
"Age discrimiation" what about all the "species discrimination!"

[Jeroen Wenting]

Why is it illegal to want a young white male but not an old black female as your next employee?

[HS Thomas]

MOOSE@work - GENIUS ( or Public menace)

[Gregg Bolinger]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
Why is it illegal to want a young white male but not an old black female as your next employee?

Affirmative Action

[Rufus BugleWeed]

I really don't see what experience has to do with your age.

For one, if you have 30 years of experience the odds of you being younger than 30 is very small.
We all know the chances of your father taking up software development are miniscule in comparison to the average 22 year old.
Why does not the offending party list the pay scale as e.g. 40-50K and sort though who ever applies? Is a person with 10 years experience less able to do the job than the person with one year experience?
The offending party wants less than 2 years experience because he wants someone young.

[fred rosenberger]

The offending party wants less than 2 years experience because he wants someone young.

I really doubt you have any concrete evidence of that.
By your logic, people employers should not be allowed to state things like "5 or more years of experience", because that's discriminating against young people, also not allowed by the original reference you site. Clearly, if you are required to have 5 years of experience, then you must be at least 21 (since you can't get a job in the U.S. until age 16 (and yes, there are extenuating circumstances)). So maybe we should not be allowed to ever put any amount of experience required on any job post? your original post also said "junior" is not allowed - so now we take out Senior, Entry Level, Experienced, and all other qualifiers?
I guess we should just list all positions as "programmer needed".

[Rufus BugleWeed]

When help wanted notices or advertisements contain terms and
phrases such as age 25 to 35, young, college student, recent college
graduate, boy, girl, or others of a similar nature, such a term or
phrase deters the employment of older persons and is a violation of the
Act,

I think junior is of a similar nature. I did not write the law. I think the term associate programmer might be more politically correct. When one demands no more than 2 years experience, it's really clear.
Discrimination against younger people is not illegal. The law was written to protect the 40+.

I guess we should just list all positions as "programmer needed".

I like that Programmer needed - Stong skills in needed in middleware on Weblogic application server including ( ejb and jms ). Pluses include Ionix CORBA, and XML-RPC. Development environment is J-BUilder on XP with production on Windows XP. Pay range 70 - 100K depending on experience.
Less than two years experience and 3 to 5 years experience are very indicative of a company that is looking for somone under 30. The software developer profession gets a lot of press indicating it is bad for ageism.
Are you, Fred, fitting of the stereo-type employer? Why is it you only want to hire people under 30?

[Donald R. Cossitt]

Why does not the offending party list the pay scale as e.g. 40-50K and sort though who ever applies? Is a person with 10 years experience less able to do the job than the person with one year experience?

If the person with 10yrs is less able then that would explain why [s]he is looking for a job.
This whole political correctness thing is a crock BS anyway. Just full time employment for lawyers at the expense of every other profession to our ultimate demise.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by fred rosenberger:
By your logic, people employers should not be allowed to state things like "5 or more years of experience", because that's discriminating against young people, also not allowed by the original reference you site.

There is a huge difference between a job needing more than five years experience and an employer wanting less than two years experience. Let's think about this... could you imagine a job that in order to have the work done right it would require an employee to have more than 5 years experience? Could you imagine a job that requires that you to have less than 2 years? What would the requirement be that a person with 1 year experience can do the job but a person with 3 years experience would not be able to do the job?

[fred rosenberger]

Are you, Fred, fitting of the stereo-type employer?

I am not an employer at all. I started programming at age 31, so if I wanted to only hire people under 30, I wouldn't have a job myself.

Discrimination against younger people is not illegal.

It may not be, but it should be. i will NEVER understand why it is OK to discriminate against one group but not another.

associate programmer might be more politically correc

Why is this any better??? If everyone KNOWS it means "someone with less experience", you're just using verbal camoflage.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Gregg Bolinger:

Affirmative Action

I know. It's a disgrace that discrimination is allowed as long as the group being discriminated against are white males...

[Kate Head]

Hi there,
Just to throw a spanner in the works, the UK Government hopes to introduce an anti-age-ist rule next year so that us over 50s can be employed without having to pretend we're 30 year olds!
(There's a photo of me at http://www.beckenham-clp.new.labour.org.uk/kelsey.htm (under Kate Head) and my 51st birthday was last Saturday just in case you don't think I look old enough!)
Currently in IT in the UK if you're over 35 it's impossible to get an interview!
Ho hum.
All the best,
Kate!!
PS By the way, how do Mooses cope with keyboards and mouses?
[ April 03, 2004: Message edited by: Kate Head ]

[Jessica Sant]

seeing as though this is turning into more of a discussion -- I'm moving this to the appropriate "Jobs Discussion" forum.
Please enjoy the debate there.

[Steven Broadbent]

I laugh at the ads that mismatch the following - job description - senior/junior with the salary and skill set required. For example
Junior Java developer 20k, in depth weblogic, oracle ,struts, xsl and xml
pick two of the three for gods sake!!

[Jon McDonald]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
Why is it illegal to want a young white male but not an old black female as your next employee?

Actually, except in EXTREMELY RARE cases, it is illegal to select an old black female over a young white male if the young white male is more qualified than the old black female. Even affirmative action does not allow this. It is one of the many myths perpetuated on both sides of the affirmative action debate. I even believed it myself, until a Republican Congressman gave me some information about what the law really said and suggested I read the legislation myself.
Jon

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Jon McDonald:

Actually, except in EXTREMELY RARE cases, it is illegal to select an old black female over a young white male if the young white male is more qualified than the old black female. Even affirmative action does not allow this. It is one of the many myths perpetuated on both sides of the affirmative action debate. I even believed it myself, until a Republican Congressman gave me some information about what the law really said and suggested I read the legislation myself.
Jon

maybe in the US, here it's different.
There have been cases where government agencies hired black people with only highschool education (if that) for jobs which were published as requiring at least a Bachelor's degree when there were white applicants that did match the requirements exactly.
In one case a police department specified in their published job requirements that only blacks need apply because they wanted to increase the percentage of black police officers (at this moment that city now has a 70% or so black police force on a total population that's maybe 10% black, blacks were being hired irrespective of suitability for the jobs they applied for because there were no suitable candidates)...
Companies have been forced to hire blacks who didn't match the job criteria and were turned down, the guys/gals just go to court claiming discrimination as the reason and there's a good chance the judge will agree if you got a smart lawyer (there's no jury system here).
Of course instead of a job they know they can't do they'll likely just settle for a nice sum (say 2 years' payment)...

[Don Stadler]

Originally posted by Kate Head:
Hi there,
Just to throw a spanner in the works, the UK Government hopes to introduce an anti-age-ist rule next year so that us over 50s can be employed without having to pretend we're 30 year olds!
Currently in IT in the UK if you're over 35 it's impossible to get an interview!

I'd heard about that rule. I hope some of these things take. It's only common sense looking at how society is aging. There simply won't be enough young people to do all the work!
BTW, I haven't found it impossible to get interviews in the UK despite being 45. I had 15 or 20 interviews last year when I was looking, and actually landed 2 contracts and a job. It was as difficult a market as I've seen since 1982 when I was breaking in, but it's difficult for younger people also. I think it's difficult for anyone inexperienced or unwilling to take under 30K salary (as I was).

[Tim Holloway]

Originally posted by Steven Broadbent:
I laugh at the ads that mismatch the following - job description - senior/junior with the salary and skill set required. For example
Junior Java developer 20k, in depth weblogic, oracle ,struts, xsl and xml
pick two of the three for gods sake!!

I never considered this as age discrimination, and I have no problem with an entry-level job being labelled "Junior" myself (When it's something like "Programmer II", that's a problem sine I don't know which direction or how hight they're counting!).
However, what "Junior" [b]really[b] means much of the time these days is "cheap", as so many ads I've seen like the one Stephen quoted make abundantly clear.
The ageism here is that someone who actually has been in the business around long enough to have these skills costs more than they want to pay. Where you are on life's timeline is incidental.

[Steven Broadbent]

<begin_moan>
The thing that annoys me most is ads that set almost impossible criteria
and yet the wording and tone of the ads shows that the person writing it knows sod-all about the industry.
</begin_moan>

[Jon McDonald]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:

maybe in the US, here it's different....

Hey Jeroen,
Where is "here" for you? What country?
Thanks,
Jon

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Jon McDonald:

Hey Jeroen,
Where is "here" for you? What country?
Thanks,
Jon

Netherlands, that small speck on the map of Europe between Germany and the sea.

[Marc Peabody]

Why does not the offending party list the pay scale as e.g. 40-50K and sort though who ever applies? Is a person with 10 years experience less able to do the job than the person with one year experience?

Possibly because the person with 10 years experience is gone as soon as they get a better offer. The programmer with less experience has to put in a couple years before a chance of seeing better offers from other employers.
The inexperience increases chances of loyalty.
Besides, having to put all your other employees through hearing your new 10+ complain about how much more they should be making, how they can't wait to leave, etc. doesn't exactly help morale.
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. It is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
-Mark Twain

[Rufus BugleWeed]

I've seen the new college grads show up on the job. Many cannot do the work. Many will not do the work. Many will quit in the first two years because they get an 8% increase from the guy across town.
A ten year veteran could be harder to manage. A ten year veteran could be wiser.
I have not seen any evidence that attrition rates are higher for ten year veterans than for any other experience level.
Could you site any studies to refute my empirical evidence. Whatever happened to Alfred Newman? He witnessed a similar attrition in newbies.
Ten year veterns don't have loyalty because they know the companies don't reward it.

[Don Stadler]

Originally posted by Rufus BugleWeed:

I've seen the new college grads show up on the job. Many cannot do the work. Many will not do the work. Many will quit in the first two years because they get an 8% increase from the guy across town.

Starting out can be a problem, especially in a 'sink or swim' workplace. I was fortunate (in a way) with my early jobs. I ended up in a new IT (UNIX)department as their second hire. The pay was peanuts but basically I was the 'expert' from day one, without really knowing anything. I definately couldn't do the work (at first). I tried hard and learned on the job. They lived with my mistakes and I ended up mentoring a small department of people even more ignorant than I was. After 18 months I left to go 2 blocks away (for a 50% raise).

Originally posted by Rufus BugleWeed:
A ten year veteran could be harder to manage. A ten year veteran could be wiser.
I have not seen any evidence that attrition rates are higher for ten year veterans than for any other experience level.

I'm not sure. Many veterans have more settled lives than the new graduates. Whether they are easier or harder to manage depends upon individual factors and also on how you want to manage. Trust me and treat me as an adult and I'm extremely easy to manage. Try micromanaging me and it will be a different story.....
Attrition has many causes. Both newbies and veterans can have competence issues - the newbie may haven't learned much and the veteran may have experience in the wrong things. Both may be discontented. Or mercenary. The latter isn't as much of a problem now because of the lousy jobs market.

Originally posted by Rufus BugleWeed:
Could you site any studies to refute my empirical evidence. Whatever happened to Alfred Newman? He witnessed a similar attrition in newbies.

Alf was cut off by the management for having a 'fictional' moniker. He's still posting however.
The problem I saw with newbies during the latter part of the boom is that they often couldn't contribute anything in an obvious way and the veterans were too overloaded to have time to teach them. They were hired in a rush without any discernable plan on how to integrate them into the company and frequently found themselves in over their heads when they were put to work.
[ April 08, 2004: Message edited by: Don Stadler ]

[Marc Peabody]

A coworker of mine told me a story of his first job in his current field. Throughout the interview he explained that the employer should hire someone with more experience but they hired him anyway. One of the main reasons - he was willing to do things THEIR way and the more "qualified" candidates did not. That was a decade or so ago, before the boom.
And maybe I should have pointed out that we're not in the .com boom now. The newbies know that it's this or flippin' burgers for the next couple years before the offers start rollin' in. :roll: And you have to be a half-way decent newb to get hired now anyway. Your empirical evidence is a few years dated.

[Jason Stull]

Here's a treat from the boom years. Did anyone experience this?:
My wife is a QA and back in the late 90's worked for a sexy, new web development shop. This was a startup born and concieved of a couple of guys with dads money to spend. Their closely veiled policy was to hire development staff that was young and fun, therefore contributing to the youngness and funness of the web products. My wife said the developer kids' typical day consisted of
1. coming in at 8 am (optional)
2. go get coffee (I'm not talking from the break room, but from Starbucks)
3. do some work, play foosball
4. have lunch (also an external event)
5. do some work
6. have an acoustic guitar jam session (I'm not kidding)
7. do some work, go get coffee
8. do some work
9. play foosball
10. go home promptly at 5pm
Now these kids were starting at $65K USD/year. Now not to brag about my wife, but she's devoted to and talented in her trade. You can bet that as a QA she wasn't making that kind of money. I just bring it up for those who long for the golden age. It also is a fabulous example of age discrimination and stunning stupidity.

Of course this little, bloated pig of a company was one of the first to go belly up after the crash.