Preventing Age Discrimination from Resumes

When a person submits a résumé for a job application, it is expected by the employer that that résumé will have information about the individual's education included. The high school attended, college attended, and potentially even graduate school attended will all be listed on the résumé. What many don't realize is that they may be contributing to inadvertent or subconscious age discrimination by putting their dates of graduation on their résumé.

Because of the potential for discrimination based on graduation dates, many head hunters are now encouraging people to leave off their graduation dates. The date problem can work in both directions. It is not difficult to figure out when a person was born by looking at his or her high school graduation date, or even undergraduate.

By providing these dates, a person is likely to be excluded from the serious pile of interview candidates based on being either too young or too old. Individuals that are too old may be discarded because they are seen as having too much experience and so will be too expensive. Individuals who are too young, not technically a protected group yet, are seen as having too little experience and so will cost too much to train and get up to speed.

Regardless of whether one is seen as being too young or too old, it may not be a good idea to put one's graduation dates on a résumé. This can discourage employers at both ends of the spectrum and hurt a person's chances of employment.

Contact a Houston Employment Attorney

If you have been the victim of age discrimination, contact the Houston employment lawyers of the Ross Law Group at 713-482-6910.