NPR

Older Workers Find Age Discrimination Built Right Into Some Job Sites

The websites screen out older job seekers by limiting the dates you can fill in forms, an investigation by the Illinois attorney general found. But other sites say they make a point of fairness.
Older adults have been excluded from some websites that post jobs, according to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

If you're looking for work, you might start with one of those websites that posts jobs. But if you're an older adult looking for work, you might have found yourself excluded from some of the features on those sites.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan opened an investigation after a 70-year-old man called her office and complained that he'd been unable to use a resume building tool on JOBR, an app owned by Monster Worldwide.

The problem was the drop-down menu that required you to select the year when you graduated or got your first job. Those dates only went back to 1980. Madigan's office contends that could exclude anyone over 52.

Monster declined NPR's request for comment.

In addition, , (an NPR funder), , and . Their sites were less restrictive than Monster's JOBR app, but they all had their limits. Some only excluded people older than 82, but Madigan says that's still discrimination. The way these job search sites should work, she says, is that "anybody who's alive and wants to look for a job would be able to, and be able to put in accurate information."

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