Age questions on job applications, and where age still shows on resumes

Federal law doesn't forbid asking a job applicant's age or date of birth, but the EEOC's regulations say application forms that ask will be closely scrutinized, because the question can deter older applicants. Several states go further. Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware and Oregon bar employers from asking for an applicant's age, date of birth or school attendance and graduation dates on the initial application, and Oregon's bar lasts until the first interview is over. Colorado also requires an employer that asks for transcripts or certifications to tell applicants they may redact those details.

Those laws limit what an employer asks. Resumes, transcripts and copied licenses volunteer the same information anyway, and a reviewer who has seen it can't unsee it.

What an application may ask

Four state laws name the same three things: the applicant's age, their date of birth and the dates they attended or graduated from a school. They differ mainly in how long the bar lasts.

The texts are Conn. Gen. Stat. 46a-60(b)(12), 19 Del. C. 711(m), C.R.S. 8-2-131 and ORS 659A.030(1)(f). An Oregon employer that doesn't interview must wait until a conditional offer. Each law allows the question where age is a bona fide occupational qualification or another law requires the information, and Delaware adds requirements set by licensing and certifying bodies. Unlike the federal law, they reach small employers: Colorado covers every employer, Connecticut and Oregon any employer with at least one employee, and Delaware employers with four or more.

Other states restrict pre-hire questions in broader terms. Minnesota's Human Rights Act, for one, bars employers from asking for any information that pertains to age before hiring, unless age is a bona fide occupational qualification. Check the rules in every state where you hire.

The federal baseline

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects people aged 40 and older, at employers with 20 or more employees, state and local governments included. It doesn't forbid the question itself. 29 CFR 1625.5 says a form that asks for age or date of birth isn't a violation in itself, but will be closely scrutinized to make sure the purpose is lawful.

Job ads face a stricter test. Under 29 CFR 1625.4, terms such as "young", "recent college graduate" or "age 25 to 35" violate the Act unless a statutory exception applies. The EEOC's guidance on pre-employment inquiries adds that employers should avoid asking about clubs and organizations that could reveal age or another protected trait, and shouldn't ask for a photograph before an offer.

Where a job has a legal minimum age, such as serving alcohol, an employer can still confirm the applicant meets it. Colorado's guidance allows asking whether the applicant will be at least 18 on the start date, with a driver's license checked only after an offer.

What Colorado adds

Of the four, only Colorado's law deals with documents. An employer may ask for resumes, certifications, transcripts and other third-party materials with the application, but only if it tells applicants they may redact their age, birth date and school dates. The state labor department's INFO #9B offers sample wording: applicants may remove age-identifying information and won't be penalized for it.

The guidance closes the obvious workarounds. Splitting an application into a short first form and a longer second one doesn't help, because both count as the initial application. Indirect questions count too: asking which election an applicant first voted in reveals roughly when they turned 18. Penalties start with a warning and rise to as much as $2,500, and each job posting counts as a separate violation.

Where age still shows on resumes

In a field experiment published in the Journal of Political Economy in 2019, economists David Neumark, Ian Burn and Patrick Button sent 40,223 fictitious applications to 13,371 job ads. They signaled age the way real resumes do, with a high school graduation year; 56% of the real resumes they sampled included one.

• Across all the jobs tested, 18.7% of applicants aged 29 to 31 got a callback, against 12.2% of those aged 64 to 66.
• In administrative jobs, where every applicant was a woman, it was 14.4% against 7.6%. The authors concluded that the evidence held up for older women, and was much weaker for men.

A graduation year is only the most obvious signal.

Graduation and attendance dates

Education sections carry dates in several forms: "B.S. Accounting, 1989", "Ridgeview High School, Class of 1984". Certifications and licenses list the year they were earned. An expected graduation date signals youth just as clearly.

Work history and summaries

A work history that starts in 1987 tells a reviewer roughly how old the applicant is. So does a summary line like "30 years in logistics" or "began my career before email".

Photos and personal details

A photo shows age at a glance, which is one reason the EEOC advises against asking for one. CVs written to other countries' conventions often open with personal details: "Date of birth: 14 March 1968. Nationality: Spanish. Married." Email addresses and profile handles can carry a birth year too: "[email protected]".

Transcripts, diplomas and licenses

Transcripts often print the student's date of birth beside the dates of every term, and a copied driver's license shows the birth date outright. These usually arrive as scans or phone photos, so the dates are part of an image a text search never reads.

Activities, and the file itself

Memberships can signal age as well as other protected traits: "Member, Silver Striders Walking Club". Then there is the file: document properties, comments and form fields can hold the name and dates removed from the page.

A checklist before resumes reach reviewers

• Application forms ask for no age, birth date or school dates, and ask about a minimum age only for jobs that have one.
• Requests for transcripts or certifications tell applicants they may redact age details.
• Graduation and attendance years are gone from education sections, certifications included.
• Birth dates are gone from CV headers, transcripts and copied IDs.
• Photos, and email handles that carry a birth year, are removed.
• Older work history is handled by the same rule for every applicant.
• Scanned transcripts and licenses have been read by OCR, not only their text layer.
• Redacted text is removed, not covered, and document properties, comments and form fields are clean.

Where DocArmor fits

DocArmor's Blind Hiring & Bias Reduction template removes applicant names, photographs, contact details, residence, school names, affiliations and graduation dates, and leaves employers, titles, degrees and skills. Employment dates stay unless a plain-English instruction such as "remove employer names before 2015" says otherwise; an instruction can also take out a birth date on an international CV. OCR reads scanned transcripts, every finding goes to a reviewer, and redacted content is removed and checked on every page, with metadata, attachments and form values stripped, so a graduation year can't be recovered from under a box.

This post is general information about federal and state employment law, not legal advice. Check the rules in each state where you hire, and any local ordinances, with employment counsel.