A full service IT staffing and placement company is looking to hire a full-time recruiter to join our team.
Ideally, we want a younger individual, with a years experience or less in any recruiting, sales, marketing, or HR industry. RECENT COLLEGE GRADS PLEASE APPLY!
The role begins doing specific recruitment for open positions, and will then transition to a mix of recruitment and account management.
We are a small company looking to add to our growing team, if you love working independently, are an outgoing, organized, motivated individual, send me your resume! If you look like a good fit I will send you some more details.
I responded to the company that posted the advertisement, but perhaps not the way they were expecting or intended:
Good morning,
I was reviewing open jobs and gigs on Philly Craig's List this morning, and came across your advertisement for the subject position. Right up front: I have less than one year experience in recruiting, sales, marketing, or the HR industry, and I'm looking for a job. I present myself well, have outstanding communication skills, am a fast learner, and have a good IT background.
So what would prevent you from considering my interest in the position?
I'm 56 years old.
The ad that you've posted is a direct EEO violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act - ADEA - 29 U.S. Code Chapter 14. In the ad, you lead with "Ideally, we want a younger individual...". While you might want to parse the term 'ideally', there's no question that the phrase you used would tacitly exclude an applicant who meets your other requirements, yet is beyond what would be considered young.
While I'm sure that you've already received plenty of interest in the ad from the demographic you seek, and that asking you to remove (or reword) the ad on Craig's List is like closing the barn door after the horse is miles down the road, I'm asking you to do just that. If the ad remains after today, I'll forward it to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission for investigation under ADEA.
There are many Americans out of work today, and there are many applicants for every open position. That you appear to be excluding older (and perfectly capable) job seekers with your ad is troubling to me on many levels, particularly since your firm is engaged in recruiting! I do hope that you'll consider your approach the next time you're seeking to fill a role in your organization, or trying to fill a job position for one of your clients.
Thanks for hearing me out.
I'm not sure how much more blatant a company can get. And like I said in my email, this is a recruiting firm, for chrissakes. How many older applicants have take the time to carefully submit their credentials and letters of interest to this company for positions that they're trying to fill for clients, and then have their resumes go promptly in the recycle bin because there's a culture of ageism at the recruiting firm??
The more I think about it (again, because this is a recruiting firm we're talking about), perhaps I should forward the ad onto the local EEOC office.
Grrr.
(Oh - and the ad was removed from Craig's List within 30 minutes of my sending the email. That's the small victory, I guess.)
