According to the PcM Quiz - During an interview with a potential employee, it is somehow unacceptable to ask when a candidate graduated during an interview, but perfectly fine to collect from the applicant’s resume. I’m trying to get my head around how -in some distorted court setting - the judge would rule that the oral question was discriminatory while the written resume requirement is not. (I look at that question and think to myself - Wait, this is a free country; if someone doesn’t want to hire me because I’m old, that’s his business. Running a business requires an employer to make all kinds of discriminating judgments about particular qualities that he may or may not want in the mix.)
hi @aidenjh
I would say that a firm requiring an applicant to put their date of graduation on their resume would be the same as asking an interview question to the same effect - both show that the firm is actively trying to find out how old the candidate is. Since age is a protected class under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), using such information to make hiring decisions could be grounds for a lawsuit. The same can be said about other pieces of information that would let you know if a person is in a protected class or not - such as whether someone is disabled, their national origin, etc. For the purposes of the ARE I would avoid any such questions - they’re going to be considered inappropriate.
If a candidate freely provides information on their resume that makes it clear how old they are, there would be no way to prove whether a firm actively used this information to make a hiring decision or not. Of course, firms shouldn’t do that, but it would be hard/impossible to prove if they did.
I wouldn’t classify routine evaluations that employers make about potential employees as inherently ‘discriminatory’. For example, a firm might want a candidate that has strong Revit skills. If, after evaluating two candidates’ portfolios, they determine one has better Revit skills than the other, that’s perfectly OK and not discriminatory - they’re choosing the candidate who they perceive to have the skills and experience they desire. If they choose one candidate because they’re younger, and they assume a younger candidate has a better grasp of Revit, that would be discriminatory.
Of course, I’m not an attorney and this isn’t legal advice, just advice on how to navigate a question like this if you encounter one on the ARE.