Get Your CV Right and You Don"t Need Anti Age-Discrimination Laws

Without going into the fine detail, on 1st October in the UK, the new laws to provide protection against age-discrimination in employment and adult education, for people of all ages came into force. But will they work?

The new law will cover discrimination in employment and in training and education, but not in provision of goods and services – as far as work or careers go then the two areas that matter are:

Direct Discrimination:

Treating someone less favorably because of their age i.e. refusing to recruit someone because they are or appear to be over 50 say.

Indirect Discrimination:

Having a policy or practices that put people at a disadvantage because of their age i.e. restricting recruitment to new graduates. Not many older people could meet this type of requirement.

All of this only applies to people who are under the normal retirement age (usually 65) and anyone over this age, or within six months of it, still has no protection.

All well and good you say, but these new laws – will they work? It may sound cynical but some employers’ attitudes are so entrenched that any new law like this will only lead to more imaginative excuses being given. If they think you are too old, they will simply find another reason not to employ you and you are usually the one to give it to them.

This means that you need to be extra-careful not to give them any reason they could use against you when you first apply.

As a one-time recruitment consultant, I saw many of my clients reject applicants because of their age. The quality of their CVs was usually behind that decision.

So often the CV submitted by an older worker would be a long document, filled with highly detailed paragraphs about all of the duties and responsibilities that the worker had ever held. The attitude would be “my work history speaks for itself”.

The inherent problem in this approach is twofold:

1. The document may mistakenly be taken to include everything; so if you have overlooked one element that the employer is seeking, you’re dead in the water and the anti age-discrimination laws didn’t help.

2. Employers want people who will add value, so this type of CV, with its reliance on duties and responsibilities will let you down straight away.

The solution to that is a radical rethink of your CV. When you apply it is the only evidence that the prospective employer has about you so it needs to be good, okay? Help yourself and don’t fall foul of the anti-age discrimination laws.

What you need a CV that is strong on design, construction and content; it must look good, be easy to read and contain only enough RELEVANT detail to convince the reader that you should be called for interview (that is the job you want it to do) – because they want to know more about you – focus on your successful outcomes and avoid telling any lies.

Keep it relevant to the particular job you want and include facts and figures on budgets, staff numbers, your achievements and results. Employers want results – this is your showcase for what they may be buying.

The reader needs just enough specific information to conclude:

“I must interview this candidate” The anti age-discrimination laws don’t come into it.

Get Your CV Right and You Don"t Need Anti Age-Discrimination Laws