AIBU to think this frustrating new work policy is age discriminatory?

[windygallows]

A few years ago a new HR policy at work decreed that job descriptions can no longer note years of experience and instead one can only ask for 'significant or relevant experience in...'. The reason for this is that apparently requiring years of experience discriminates against younger people who haven't done the time but may have relevant experience in their role.

One could also make a case that someone may have gained a great deal of experience in a short 2 years whereas someone else could have spent 10 years coasting, learning nothing at all. So fair point.

The problem is that in action this has become a tool for discriminating against older candidates. Across many business areas where I work almost all staff recruited have been in their 20s/early 30s and I have been on numerous group panels where we end up having to interview candidates with a huge variety of experience and the glossy, enthusiastic young people win over. (I don't always vote in their favour but in a large group tend to be overruled).

I could despair. It is very hard to find work as you get older (especially for women) and stupid policies like this demonstrate that there is no value in wisdom gained through length of time on the job. I really think that learning to manage, to deal with people, to lead projects and deal with problems comes with time and experience.

AIBU to find this frustrating and wrong?

It’s very lazy recruiting to specify a number of years. It’s making an assumption that someone with 5 years’ experience will be able to do something/have experience of something/possess knowledge of something that someone with 3 years’ experience won’t.

If someone writing a job description/person spec/advert finds themselves inclined to put x number of years’ experience, they should question themselves why that is. What skills/attributes/qualities/experiences are they thinking that person with the ‘right’ number of years’ experience will have? Then once they have identified those things, put those on the jd, rather than a number of years.

That way you are more likely to get candidates with years of repetitive poor quality experience ruling themselves out, and are not ruling out stellar candidates with all the right qualities who have slightly less experience in terms of ‘time served’ than you were going to put.

Cucumber. That’s my point though, it requires a company to pay more than statutory pay to make it attractive and a viable option.

Most small businesses can’t afford that.

I recently read (can't remember where and hope it is not true) that women's earning peak is at 33.
33!
What are we doing for the next 34 years, just treading water? Being passed over for more dynamic younger candidates?
I found that so depressing and my experience so far seems to bear that out: minimal pay rise aged 35, now almost 38 and no further I can go in my current organisation. If I stay here, I can look forward to a 1% annual pay rise (ie less than inflation).

I recruited someone recently.

We are also not allowed to specify number of years' experience.

As we expected, the vast majority of applicants were women, but there were several strong applications from men. We did 2 rounds of interviews, and a disproportionate number of men made it to the first round of interviews. It became apparent during those initial interviews that most of the men did not have the breadth and depth of experience we needed (the job requires a degree of initiative) despite the details in their CV: they had really milked every job they'd had in their short careers. The top candidate was a woman over 40 (and I'm delighted she took the job!) - I'm also sure in her case that she is capable of promotion in the future.

This is a public sector job and we have to score against the criteria in the job spec; HR then sanity check the scores and applicants are ranked accordingly. What I've learned over the years is to be very careful when constructing the job spec.

flowery is spot on (as I would expect!): What skills/attributes/qualities/experiences are they thinking that person with the ‘right’ number of years’ experience will have? Then once they have identified those things, put those on the jd, rather than a number of years.