Recruitment
The EFA's age bias free application form
The EFA challenge HR to stop hiding behind chronology
As part of a campaign to tackle age bias in recruitment, the EFA set Bartlett Scott Edgar, the recruitment specialists, the task of creating an application form with all of the obvious, and not so obvious, age elements removed. This meant taking out not only date of birth - but all chronological information.
Why have we done this now?
Age discrimination legislation is now only two years away, so this is the perfect time for employers to start to rethink their recruitment practices. We are inviting HR professionals to test the application form to see whether it could work for their organisation.
Age is used to build a mental picture of a person - and old habits die hard. This means simply removing date of birth from an application form or CV achieves very little, as we immediately check out education and career history – not to establish whether someone is able to do a job – but to do some quick mental arithmetic.
Creating a truly age neutral application form means that the people actually recruiting the candidate won’t know anything about their age or chronological career history. While employers will still have access to all relevant personal information (on a separate form) the manager responsible for sifting candidates will be making a decision to select, solely on the basis of demonstrated competency, not age.
A step too far?
Inevitably removing a candidate’s career history leaves employers disorientated without their traditional yardstick against which to gauge loyalty, commitment, progression and unemployment. Yet if we are ever to tackle discrimination in the workplace, we need to go back to the basics - and this means asking ourselves if a career timeline really provides the answer to these questions.
What next?
The age neutral application form is a work in progress, please have a look at the attached and e-mail your comments to efa@efa.org.uk.
download pdf
Click here for the age bias free application form.
download pdf
Click here for the guidance notes.
The EFA's age bias free application form
The EFA challenge HR to stop hiding behind chronology
As part of a campaign to tackle age bias in recruitment, the EFA set Bartlett Scott Edgar, the recruitment specialists, the task of creating an application form with all of the obvious, and not so obvious, age elements removed. This meant taking out not only date of birth - but all chronological information.
Why have we done this now?
Age discrimination legislation is now only two years away, so this is the perfect time for employers to start to rethink their recruitment practices. We are inviting HR professionals to test the application form to see whether it could work for their organisation.
Age is used to build a mental picture of a person - and old habits die hard. This means simply removing date of birth from an application form or CV achieves very little, as we immediately check out education and career history – not to establish whether someone is able to do a job – but to do some quick mental arithmetic.
Creating a truly age neutral application form means that the people actually recruiting the candidate won’t know anything about their age or chronological career history. While employers will still have access to all relevant personal information (on a separate form) the manager responsible for sifting candidates will be making a decision to select, solely on the basis of demonstrated competency, not age.
A step too far?
Inevitably removing a candidate’s career history leaves employers disorientated without their traditional yardstick against which to gauge loyalty, commitment, progression and unemployment. Yet if we are ever to tackle discrimination in the workplace, we need to go back to the basics - and this means asking ourselves if a career timeline really provides the answer to these questions.
What next?
The age neutral application form is a work in progress, please have a look at the attached and e-mail your comments to efa@efa.org.uk.
download pdf
Click here for the age bias free application form.
download pdf
Click here for the guidance notes.
