I am the Claimant who brought the claim of age discrimination to the Tribunal. Unfortunately the real story is not quite as sensational as the one made up by the Daily Mail with the help of the Tribunal. I have been trying to get a full-time job since 2005 and I have continually applied to agencies for roles that I have identified as suitable for me. All of my applications have been binned because “there are no roles available to suit my skill set” or some such phrase. In fact in accountancy there are no roles that recruitment agencies will put “aged” candidates like me forward for. Non qualified candidates from overseas (provided they are young) are preferred to UK fully qualified candidates. I was not allowed to reveal the details of any settlement until the order from the court today but the following is the real position: 1. Ellis Fairbank COT3 4000.00 2. Investigo Tribunal 3. Martin ward Anderson WITHDRAWN 4. Austin Andrew Tribunal 5. Robert Half COT3 7000.00 6. IMS Worldwide COT3 6000.00 7. CMC Consulting Tribunal 8. Nigel Lynn Associates Tribunal 9. GW Professional Tribunal 10. Trident WITHDRAWN 11. Sony BNG COT3 2500.00 1. Goodman Masson WITHDRAWN 2. Ingram Mayet Tribunal 3. Reed Personnel WITHDRAWN 4. Stratton Group WITHDRAWN 5. Holden Jones Tribunal 6. JP Gray Tribunal 7. Robert Walters Tribunal 8. Ajilon WITHDRAWN 9. Huxley Associates WITHDRAWN 10. Partner Financial COT3 3800.00 11. Aspect Finance Tribunal 12. HSBC WITHDRAWN Total received: £23300.00.  Actual legal fees paid were 15380.38 and I had a great deal of further costs – so I made no gain from this exercise – I simply wished to make these employment agencies comply with the law. Age discrimination is alive and well and it is not going away anytime soon.

claimant:

Unfortunately the real story is not quite as sensational as the one made up by the Daily Mail with the help of the Tribunal.

I have yet to experience a case where the tribunal offered any assistance to the press - that is dangerous ground for them to tread.  It is more likely that the Respondents provided a copy of the tribunal judgement to the Daily Mail.

I understand that there are differences between your post and the article (which to be honest I hadn't read or seen until I saw your post) and have no doubt that the truth of the matter lies in between the two somewhere.  

What I would say is that as an employment tribunal practitioner I always get very concerned by individuals with multiple claims like this (and I am not trying to suggest that your claims were not valid) - the good intentions of the law are frequently undermined by its cynical manipulation and this has an impact on those with genuine problems.  You say that you were genuinely trying to find work, but there are those who are not.  Employers need to be aware that people like this are out there and ensure that their recruitment and decision making practices are open and transparent.

Good luck in finding a job.

The good part of the actual decision in Watford in Keane & 5 Others is that:

1. Using words like "newly qualified" "recently qualified" "1 to 3 year's PQE" or anything similar are age discriminatory becuase they discriminate against people over 35.  The mistake I made apparently is that I applied.

I should not have applied I should have just raised a complaint and then it would be indirect discrimination!

Well guys - you know who they are - see what they are asking for and provided you satisfy the criteria (make sure you have a degree!) 

then you can - not apply and claim indirect age discrimination

(Obviously I do not want anyone to really take this advice - I just want to make the position clear!)

Oh, and you can add "finalist" "part-qualified/qualified" and any other little tricks

Ironically I encounter it almost every day in HR recruitment!

The problem with this is now instead of ringing up candidates and letting them know I can't put them forward I am inclined to believe ignoring emails and calls is the safest answer.

As a consultant what can I possibly do to avoid this kind of hassle?  The last thing I want to do is say no to one of my applicants because they are simply not good enough and then have tribunals raised against me for all sorts of discriminations.

Are you for real? - you make a living by puting people forward for jobs - you earn commission if the applicant is successful - therefore applicants deserve at least an automated response - If you word your advertisement correctly you will not have to inform them that they are "simply not good enought" the competencies of the role will determine if a candidate should apply or not

The Daily Mail columnist Neil Sears seems to have had a vision - maybe even heard voices - has he provided anyone with a copy of the judgement in this case?

Gaapweb advertise a lot of accountancy vacancies and it seems that they believe that "newly qualified" is not discriminatory - I wonder?

 

Elle from London said (She is enlightened): 

 

You don't need a DOB to work out an applicant's age from a CV and they have discriminated by using such phrases entry level and newly qualified as those candidates are usually younger. What they should say is " we need someone qualified , it's a crap post where you do all the work that your manager won't or can't do and you have to work all the hours God sends. So it helps if you haven't got any other obligations, don't have more expereince than the prat who's telling you to do it, and can't stand up for yourself."

Actually, I think the following case should be appealed: Rainbow v. Milton Keynes Council - Bedford Employment Tribunal, Case No.1200104/07 The tribunal held this was NOT direct age discrimination - she was not treated less favourably because of her age but because her long experience meant that her wages would be higher than those of someone with less experience. To equate this to race discrimination; (I have checked with a black friend who believes people would not be offended by this example). It is like an advertisement that asks for people with straight hair. Then when a black person complains that this is discriminatory the advertiser says; Oh, but it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim because we have two building and we did not want to have our staff looking scruffy; if it was raining and had to run between the two buildings – those people with straight hair would look better than people with curly hair (when the arrived at the second building) because their hair would not contract in the rain. It would be even worse if a tribunal made such a finding! It is not obvious that experience increases in proportion to age (generally- say 80%) and therefore if you have more experience you are probably older!!!! However it WAS indirect age discrimination as an older person was less likely to have "less than 5 years experience".

- Blackstone Coke, London – thank you very much. Thanks to everyone who made a positive comment! Well done, Miss Keane. If firms did not categorically bin all applications by age criteria at the first hurdle, they would not be vulnerable to her claims. To label her as a "serial litigator" is merely a denial of the endemic and institutional nature of age discrimination. I hope she continues to make a good living by this "serial litigation" until the day comes when the job market reforms.

Thank you very much, Ben. I'm all done! Bye!

All my applicants get a response but what I am saying is; what is to stop the next person I send a message to letting them know that they are not suited to the role from accusing me ovf racism/sexism/ageism and any other "ism" either to take their frustrations out on me or even top get a payday out of it?  Considering I am more often than not simply conveying the feelings of my clients with a politer spin then it that case it seems unfair.

 Obviously you have not worked in recruitment before because if you had you would have realised that for each role several ads are put out on several different job boards which not only attract the right candidates but also the wrong ones.  I've had dog walkers applying for high end IT roles in the past!  By your logic that cnadidate should have seen the competances in my ad and not replied, they still did though.

 

I have not worked in recruitment; but it seems to be it must be very simple to deal with applications from candidates who are not a good fit.  You need a range of rejection automated emails, e.g.

Code 1 - rejection (I'm sorry you do not have the skills - try a dog walking agency)

Code 2 - rejection (You have skills in this are but we are concerned that you lack x, y z)

Code 3 - rejection - you follow my reasoning?

"Considering I am more often than not simply conveying the feelings of my clients" - this I believe is where the industry is falling down - if you client's have requirements that are at odds with the legislation it is for your management to inform them of this and the EE(A)R 2006 makes this very clear.

My issue was recruitment agencies using what other poster have described as "weasel words" to get around the legislation and genuinely rejecting candidates for reasons of age.