Need a Job?

I 'phoned my ex-CES mate this morning and he offered this advice to over 40 job seekers.

Don't put your age or date of birth on your CV. The potential employer doen't need to know and shouldn't ask. If they are smart they won't ask. If they do, ask them why they need to know this.

If you have reasonable work history over the last 5-6 years show this but don't go back into ancient history. Old jobs would be mostly irrelevant today due to changes in technology and workplace practices.

Quote referees or provide references only if you have pre-contacted them and got their approval. No point in refering to someone who thinks you were an icehole or was glad to see you go.

Provide education details but don't mention the name of schools or colleges. Likewise don't mention religion, lodge or other fraternal or religious membership. Don't give the employer the chance to discriminate.

As someone responsible for hiring staff not putting your DOB or school details means you probably wont get an interview.

All that tells the reader, who knows nothing about you is that you have something to hide.

I think personally better advice is to make sure your resume is RELEVANT. If your over 20 I probably don't really care about your after school activities. The cover letter is the most important part, that tells me about you, is the first impression and usually makes me decide if you get to an interview. If there is no cover letter you just lost your chance to "sell" you to me.

As I look to employ four wheel drivers (and I state that in the adverts) a cover letter telling me how brilliant you are in sales but says nothing about your four wheel driving tends to suggest you have no experience so left it out.

Like I say, just my opinion but age doesn't come in to play. I read the cover letter, flick through the resume then look at age/location/birth place etc. If the cover letter was good I'll gloss over the other details and give you a chance. I'm only looking at age to see if the reume makes sense (eg 20 jobs and your 30.... not stable, 50 and 1 job that's not relevant puts a question mark too. 40 had 3-4 jobs some relevant some not shows stability, as does living locally)

Just my 2c. (By the way I advertised a position on this site back on the 2nd of May and not one response from here.. So everyone on AULRO in Tassie must have a job they are happy with!)

i'll say it again, age discrimination is illegal. The employer has no need to know and shouldn't ask. Your educational qualifications are relevant but not the institutions you attended. Asking the school's names was one way of applying religious discrimination. e.g. only employed catholics or never employed catholics.

How do you define "living locally" and what relevance is this when Centrelink requires job seekers to seek work within 1 1/2 hours travel.

Age discrimination is against equal opportunity laws, never did I state anything above that is at all age discrimination. Read it. In our business we prefer experience... that tends to lead you to look at more mature age staff so I am not sure what your point is.

Schools names can also give the person who is looking a look at your past. Like it or not they will draw their own conclusions. Not putting them on there is more likely to lead to you not getting as far in to the application process as someone who offered that extra bit of information. Again like it or not an employer is looking at the whole person, not just qualifications. It is not just about your ability to do the job, it is also about your cultural fit with the existing team. (Cultural as in the workplace culture, not race)

What Centrelink requires saomeone to do as part of their job hunting is irrelevant to my requirements. I have no legal obligation to employ you because you live within "Centrelinks" requirements. If you live two hours (or indeed here 1 hour) there is every chance you are more likely to look for another position down the track closer to home (an hours drive in Tassie is a long way!)

If you were born locally, and still live in the area there is a good chance you are going to be a long term employee. Not many companies like to hire and retrain staff continually.

As I said before, your cover letter in particular, and your resume is your chance to sell yourself to a potential employer. Quite frankly most resume's are a joke.

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Originally Posted by cookiesa

As I look to employ four wheel drivers (and I state that in the adverts) a cover letter telling me how brilliant you are in sales but says nothing about your four wheel driving tends to suggest you have no experience so left it out.

(snipped)

Just my 2c. (By the way I advertised a position on this site back on the 2nd of May and not one response from here.. So everyone on AULRO in Tassie must have a job they are happy with!)

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What sort of jobs are you offering that you need Four Wheel Drivers?
I didn't see the Tassie job advertised.

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Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

I 'phoned my ex-CES mate this morning and he offered this advice to over 40 job seekers.

Don't put your age or date of birth on your CV. The potential employer doen't need to know and shouldn't ask. If they are smart they won't ask. If they do, ask them why they need to know this.

If you have reasonable work history over the last 5-6 years show this but don't go back into ancient history. Old jobs would be mostly irrelevant today due to changes in technology and workplace practices.

Quote referees or provide references only if you have pre-contacted them and got their approval. No point in refering to someone who thinks you were an icehole or was glad to see you go.

Provide education details but don't mention the name of schools or colleges. Likewise don't mention religion, lodge or other fraternal or religious membership. Don't give the employer the chance to discriminate.

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very good advice.

I am now in my early 30s, but back a few years (When I was about 18-20yrs), i was working contract work in IT, and found it really hard to get full time work. Once i removed my age from my CV, i got an interview immediately. I think people looked at how young i was and thought there is no way this person can have this sort of experience etc, anyway i got my first full time job out of that and have never put my age back in my CV since.

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Originally Posted by Hymie

What sort of jobs are you offering that you need Four Wheel Drivers?
I didn't see the Tassie job advertised.

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(ARB) Four Wheel drive accessories. one sales position, one fitter position.

Under Markets there is an employment section. The positions were also in Saturday and Sunday's paper

That's why I want people with four wheel drive experience. Wherever possible we like to employ people who are out there doing it. Which is of course why age is generally irrelevant, you can't get experience reading magazines!

I'd urge anyone, regardless of the state you are in, if you want to get involved in this business to send your resume to your state office/local store.

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Originally Posted by cookiesa

Age discrimination is against equal opportunity laws, never did I state anything above that is at all age discrimination. Read it. In our business we prefer experience... that tends to lead you to look at more mature age staff so I am not sure what your point is.

Schools names can also give the person who is looking a look at your past. Like it or not they will draw their own conclusions. Not putting them on there is more likely to lead to you not getting as far in to the application process as someone who offered that extra bit of information. Again like it or not an employer is looking at the whole person, not just qualifications. It is not just about your ability to do the job, it is also about your cultural fit with the existing team. (Cultural as in the workplace culture, not race)

What Centrelink requires saomeone to do as part of their job hunting is irrelevant to my requirements. I have no legal obligation to employ you because you live within "Centrelinks" requirements. If you live two hours (or indeed here 1 hour) there is every chance you are more likely to look for another position down the track closer to home (an hours drive in Tassie is a long way!)

If you were born locally, and still live in the area there is a good chance you are going to be a long term employee. Not many companies like to hire and retrain staff continually.

As I said before, your cover letter in particular, and your resume is your chance to sell yourself to a potential employer. Quite frankly most resume's are a joke.

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Age discrimination occurs when age is used as a selection criterion. The only time age is relevant is where the position or remuneration is age based, i.e junior employment. Any other usage is against industrial and anti-discrimination law. If you have any doubts as to how the legal system looks at this check what happened to Virgin Australia when Virgin had an age barrier to employing flight attendants.

Tasmania may be small place with a small population who still have the luxury of living near their workplace. Not so over on Australia. For more than forty years to my knowledge Sydney workers have been traveling from the Central Coast, well up the Blue Mountains, and from Illawarra. Brisbane workers who once rarely travelled more the 7-8 miles to work,and would change jobs if an employer moved to the then new industrial suburbs, now travel from the Sunshine and Gold Coasts, Beaudesert, the Lockyer and Brisbane Valleys, even from Toowoomba. Melbourne workers do similar.

Even our State Government discriminates against mature workers. I was talking to a friend who works in a department, with more public servants below him than above. He was telling me about the unofficial 'talent pool', from where management draw people for promotion and higher duties. One of the criteria, for inclusion on the list is 'under fifty'; the same criteria is used when employing new staff also.

I'm originally from "Australia" your point about what people do in Sydney, Queensland or Alice is what exactly?

As for age discrimination you might want to look up the defination, a good place to start would be through the commonwealth "fairwork" There is a clause to meet the criteria which ALLOWS age as a selection criteria. However

"the burden of proving that the condition, requirement or practice is reasonable in the circumstances lies on the discriminator."

That said I will state for the third time, the context of my comments, which you are intent on taking out of context, is that NOT declaring your age may very well imply you have something to hide, it suggests you may not offer full disclosure and could very well prevent you getting an interview in some instances, as I said above.

And by the way, not declaring things on your employment application (not resume unless it contains false or misleading information) do give the employer the right to terminate your employment if such deciet is discovered.