The legality of specifying 'Junior' and 'Senior' in job descriptions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sic
  • Start date Start date

Sic

Sic

Sic

Soldato
Joined
9 Nov 2004
Posts
15,365
Location
SO16
A message has been cascaded that we are no longer allowed to advertise a job as a 'junior' or 'senior' due to age discrimination. Although my argument for this (I'm sure) is completely right, it seems to be falling on deaf ears, and I was wondering if anyone could help.

I'm saying that a junior and senior position does not refer to the age of a person, rather the amount of experience they have in a job, and reflects the responsibilities they will be expected to undertake in a role.

Are age discrimination rules so all-encompassing that you can't request that someone has a certain amount of years experience in a job because then you'll be excluding 1-3 year olds from applying for senior positions?!

I found a source that backs what I'm saying, but I don't think it's particularly reputable. I know there are some people on here who are quite good on employment law, and I was wondering if anyone has a reference I can cite.

thanks
 
Sic said:
A message has been cascaded that we are no longer allowed to advertise a job as a 'junior' or 'senior' due to age discrimination. Although my argument for this (I'm sure) is completely right, it seems to be falling on deaf ears, and I was wondering if anyone could help.

I'm saying that a junior and senior position does not refer to the age of a person, rather the amount of experience they have in a job, and reflects the responsibilities they will be expected to undertake in a role.

Are age discrimination rules so all-encompassing that you can't request that someone has a certain amount of years experience in a job because then you'll be excluding 1-3 year olds from applying for senior positions?!

I found a source that backs what I'm saying, but I don't think it's particularly reputable. I know there are some people on here who are quite good on employment law, and I was wondering if anyone has a reference I can cite.

thanks
Click to expand...

When doing public works contract we state junior as having less than 5 years in the relevant field. Nothing to do with age.
 
I have 'junior' developers working for me (i'm a senior engineer), some of whom are older than me.....

Tell 'em to shove it up their bunghole.
 
"To whom it may concern.

If an applicant is unable to discern that 'juinor' relates to an individual with less relevent experience in a given field than someone termed 'senior' then they are quite frankly too thick to work here.

Kthnxbai.

-SIC"

*n
 
penski said:
"To whom it may concern.

If an applicant is unable to discern that 'juinor' relates to an individual with less relevent experience in a given field than someone termed 'senior' then they are quite frankly too thick to work here.

Kthnxbai.

-SIC"

*n
Click to expand...

now now, we wouldn't want to intelligence-discriminate, would we?
 
No your not - you should try having to advertise several jobs a week with all the dumb restrictions in place.

Until this legislation gets tested in law everyone is running scared of it. I have heard rumours that there may be an ammendment soon, but I'm not holding my breath.

The best bet is exactly what someone else here has done which is make a company definition of what experience defines a junior and senior person - hoewever you will also need to provide specific reasons as to why this is required in the role.
 
The problem here isn't that its against the law to use junior/senior, but rather that they're worried about being sued. Anyone doing that would lose, but the company would still incur costs/get bad publicity from it so they're probably thinking 'why take the chance?'.
 
I always read junior and senior positions as how much responsability/experience, it has nothing to do with age whatsoever :confused:
 
How about you suggest specifying the positions as N00b and l33t?

Junior and Senior are (in my mind) perfectly acceptable when someone is designating a job title, as others have said it's only specifying a certain level of experience in the field, not an age and that is certainly not illegal (otherwise every driving school in the country, let alone haulage companies would be breaking the law*).

You could have a 22yo who is a "senior" in his field, whilst a 65yo might only be "junior" as they changed fields recently.


*after all you cannot legally employ a 19yo driving instructor.
 
Google turned up this: http://www.equalityni.org/archive/pdf/RecAdvertsing.pdf

The relevant section:

Where possible, do not use job titles which have an age-related connotation. For example, be very careful when using words like Junior or Senior in job titles.

It is likely to be acceptable to use a word like Senior or Junior where it merely specifies a job-holder's position in an organisation's hierarchy. For example, if the job title Senior Accounts Officer is merely used to imply that the job-holder is the Accounts Officer's line manager and has more duties and responsibilities but is not necessarily an older person, then that is likely to be a non-discriminatory use of the word Senior.

On the other hand, if an employer uses a job title like Office Junior to imply that the post-holder is expected to be a young worker, perhaps a person in their first job, then that is likely to be considered to be an age discriminatory use of the word Junior. An alternative job title should be used instead; for example, Office Assistant, Clerical Assistant, etc.
Click to expand...

Obviously that is just for NI, but check this page out as well: http://www.dti.gov.uk/employment/discrimination/age-discrimination/index.html

Specifically the links on the right hand side to the regulations and the Acas "Age and the workplace" guides.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom