This person's rejection reason

The Picard Maneuver@startrek.website to Mildly Infuriating@lemmy.world – 1453 points –
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That is probably a slam dunk (minor) discrimination lawsuit. Your circumstances of birth, including the date, are not something you can be judged for.

Follow up with your ID or Birth certificate and ask "Excuse me?"

@ocassionallyaduck

@The_Picard_Maneuver

Not true in the US. They could ban anyone born in the entire month of April, or anyone who "looks like a pot smoker" if they wanted to.

Applicants, employees and former employees are ONLY protected from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability and genetic information (including family medical history).

I wonder if an argument could be made that birthdate is a component of your genetic information including family medical history? It is also potentially age discrimination?

Technically this is discrimination based on age.

They were born 4/20/(year). You could make an argument they are discriminating all people exactly (X) years, 4 months, and 2 days old.

Yeah we typically thing age discrimination is saying we only hire people between 20-40y/o but it would also cover it if you said “I won’t hire someone 21 years old only” and still applies to banning someone 21.5 years old. And 21 years and 6 months and 27 days old.

Same applies if I ban anyone with an age divisible by 3. It’s a group of people, but if their age has anything to do with why you aren’t hiring them then I’d say this applies.

20 days

No, the comment was written on the 18th so 2 days. The 4 months only matches because this is December.

wtf does the comment date have to do with April being the (4th) month and the (20th) being the 20th day of the month?

Because how old someone is is relative to the current time. And that's the wording that the commenter used: People who are x years, y months, and z days old. The next day those same people will be a day older.

Say the discrimination was about people born on Dec 20 instead of April, in that case they (where I am) are currently X years, 11 months, and 30 days old, and tomorrow is their birthday.

I just realized that they did calculate it the wrong direction though, the 4/20 peeps are 3 months and 30 or 29 days old today (not sure on that) today.

Creative thoughts, but the exact definitions don't track (from GINA):

Genetic information.--

(A) In general.--The term "genetic information" means, with respect to any individual, information about--

(i) such individual's genetic tests,

(ii) the genetic tests of family members of such individual, and

(iii) the manifestation of a disease or disorder in family members of such individual.

(B) Inclusion of genetic services and participation in genetic research.--Such term includes, with respect to any individual, any request for, or receipt of, genetic services, or participation in clinical research which includes genetic services, by such individual or any family member of such individual.

(C) Exclusions.--The term "genetic information" shall not include information about the sex or age of any individual.

Age discrimination only applies if you're above 40.

Are you being sarcastic? Or does being rejected for a job for being 'too young' fall under a different discrimination law?
(Genuine question, i have no idea)

It doesn’t qualify as a type of discrimination that is federally protected. Suprising isn’t it?

I doubt it - your age isn't determined by your genetics. The family medical history part is so that someone doesn't fire you (or not hire you) for things like your mom having a kind of cancer that is hereditary. As a manager, if one of my employees tells me their mom has cancer, I'm not allowed to ask what kind.

Nobody said that they are from the US.

At the moment you have 69 upvotes, so I can't, in good conscience, upvote you. But you're right.

cringe

I'm so sorry that you expected better on a repost about the number 420. 🙄

it's not a 420 joke you dunce

Do you actually think that the user who posted this applied for this job?

The same user who reposts all the content on lemmy, bless his heart.

This is a joke someone posted elsewhere that has been reposted here.

lemmy winks are so much more rude than reddit posters and twice as gullible.

It wouldn't get anywhere in the US. Age is the closest protected class, but only applies to over 40 in the US. Discrimination based on month and day of birth isn't actually illegal.

I honestly think there's a gray area here and it's worth talking to a lawyer if anything. There are certainly some protections for peoples under 40. Being denied a promotion because you're "too young" is certainly a protection. The catch is you have to prove it.

This case is easy to prove though if there are any laws over this.

Edit: but now that I think about it, this is only really a protection if you're already hired at the place. If you just slam the door on people before they can get in, discrimination seems to be legal.

I believe it's legal in the US to pass someone over for promotion because they're too young. The only protected class related to age is being over 40 (potentially different in some states).

but now that I think about it, this is only really a protection if you’re already hired at the place. If you just slam the door on people before they can get in, discrimination seems to be legal.

Pretty sure that protection so applies to the application process. Can't have places rejecting every non-white candidate for being the wrong race. The problem is proving that you were rejected for a BS reason is really hard because they usually don't flat out say it, and especially not in writing

Being denied a promotion because you're "too young" is certainly a protection.

It's not actually. Age protections really do only apply to old people. If the person in the post is over 40 though, and got rejected for their birthday, they could probably at least get the company to overturn the rejection. Not sure how well they'd do in court. Most of this stuff doesn't get enforced well, and that one is already a stretch

What about star sign? That's got to be illegal, and it's p close to this

They listed the protected classes. Which one is astrology?

Yeah yeah not protected, but same could be said for requiring blond hair or blue eyes. Still discrimination

I am not a lawyer

They did specifically list genetics

How is that different from any other accident of birth that can't be changed? People really do discriminate based on when you were born:

Not hard to extrapolate a case from this. Imagine a landlord refusing to rent because you're a "scorpio" or an employer turning you down because they're looking for a "dog" person.

Bad things, but not illegal

Agreed. A lot of people in this thread are confusing what they believe should be illegal discrimination with what is actually illegal discrimination. Or they believe discrimination laws are more broadly encompassing than they are. There are a lot of kinds of discrimination that most of us agree is bad and shouldn’t be allowed… but unfortunately is not illegal.

Exactly. And though there are protected classes at the federal level, there are also some at the state level and they vary. I'm in California, and we have more than most. If you're a business owner or manager, you have to know what they are where you are or it can be really bad.

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Classic age discrimination.

Make sure to find a lawyer who is 69 years old and whose license plate is LOL80085.

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They should not censor the company name.

But then you might realize it's fake.

What do you mean ‘Company Business Incorporated Pty Ltd.’ Isn’t a legitimate employer?

Birthday on LinkedIn is a bit outlandish as age discrimination laws are fairly standard. I think it is more likely that they called it their birthday on some immature post, which may mean that the applicant is a poor cultural fit.

"Nobody was born on 4/20 except Hitler. We do not wish to hire Hitler at this time."

"However, the skillset has been retained in our documentation for future potential expansion into potential expansion."

The Sudetenland branch is hiring.

  • Managed a diverse team, ensuring effective communication and coordination across departments.
  • Orchestrated a strategic expansion initiative to establish presence in previously uncharted regions.
  • Oversaw budget management and resource allocation to meet organizational goals.
  • Led a major organizational transformation, significantly expanding membership and reach.
  • Excelled in strategic negotiations and public relations to foster expansion.
  • Cultivated a strong team culture focused on achieving shared objectives.
  • Led high-stakes operations in logistically complex and challenging environments.
  • Pioneered innovative approaches to overcome traditional operational barriers.

"Your skills and qualities tell us you may be over qualified for the position. We would like to offer you a role in management instead."

Well that's your loss I hear he's great at PR

What always ticks me off beyond reason in mails like these is the "we genuinely appreciate your time and effort in...."

Fuck. You. With. An. Umbrella.

You don't appreciate shit, you're full of shit, yet you're too shit to even just say what you really want to say: fuck you, we don't give a damn. Because being actually honest might also be bad and cost money.

Companies like there are the worse and should all burn in hell

Thank you for the opportunity!

I appreciate the time and effort it took to reply

I'd rather get a rejection email than eternally wondering why an AI filtered me out

It's not the email that bugs me, it's the fake politeness and language like "but we care! We really do!"

Glad that won't happen to me. I was born on January 6th.

Now I'm imagining someone legitimately putting their Jan6 involvement on a resume.

Window Structural Integrity Tester (Jan 6th, 2021): Responsibilities included - unconventional team-building activities, conditioning, navigating unfamiliar territory, and breaking down barriers.

Nah, it’d probably be more like:

Security Field Tester (Jan 6, 2021): Part of a group that organized a large-scale “peaceful march” in order to thoroughly check security protocols for the Capitol building. Duties included attempts at theft to see if we’d be stopped, testing window durability by attempting to break them, engaging physically with security staff in riot gear to test security training, and shouting terroristic threats in order to see how secure government protocols were in the event of a riot at a governmental building.

It’s called Physical Pen Tester. Such a job actually exists.

This can't be real. There are so many red flags this is fake. 1) Everything is censored. 2) GIS (Google image search) lookup only shows reddit and linkedin. The linkedin post is just as vague "learned a colleague received this!" 3) It's too good to be true. it plays on current fears. 4) It's just so dumb.

  1. Of course everything is censored, there is no reason to share personal info like that.

  2. I don't know what Geographical Information Systems have to do with this post, are you referring to a reverse image search like google or tineye or something? What were you expecting to find? The original email with all of the aforementioned personal info? Are you surprised content could be posted to Reddit before anywhere else?

  3. Current fears are justified.

  4. Poe's Law tells me not to assume anything is satirical because there will always be people that stupid or greedy.

And yeah, it could be fake, 100%, but your arguments were really dumb.

  1. Companies usually don't send out detailed rejection letters like this. They're usually like "after reviewing your credentials we decided to go with another candidate" or something vague like that.

1 is in no way a red flag, don't put other's personally identifying information on the Internet.

I fucking hate people like you.

"Everything on Reddit/Lemmy is fake and gay. Here's my evidence."

All evidence easily has an explanation, most of it laughably so.

What do idiots who claim everything is fake get out of it? To troll the OP? Or do you just want to spread your misery?

Is this not completely illegal? Dunno about the USA, in the UK age is a protected characteristic and you would be fucked for trying this. If it's real ofc.

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This is most likely fake.

If this was automated, a company automating rejection emails would never write the reason for rejection. It would be a vague excuse like "not a good fit for the role".

If this was not automated, then no recruiter would be this stupid.

You should have left in the company name. Shame them publicly.

Wait who puts their birthday on a resume?

Me, why shouldn't one do that? But my last resume is 10 years old, maybe I am out of touch with all the mumbo jumbo dancing you have to do, to build the "right" resume.

Many places now, that might be illegal to ask for, like race and sex.

Why did sex become illegal ?

Well you can't make a hiring decision on that basis in most places unless you have a reason. What constitutes "a reason" being variable. Generally if you are prohibited from making a decision on a certain factor, you may not ask about it during an interview.

Sex discrimination can be constituted by various things. For example asking about maritial status, children, plans for pregnancy, soliciting sexual favors, etc. Also in some places, if you thought someone might be trans, you could not ask them about that.

It was double sense joke... But thx for serious answer .

Don't put your age. It can lead to unintentional (or intentional) age discrimination and it's better for your experience to be the focus.

Age isn't a factor in hiring, so there's no need to put it on there. It could only be a detriment to the applicant.

It's generally not hard to figure out someone's age if their work and education history is listed

Some of us don't clutter up our resumes with every job we've ever had. My resume lists nothing irrelevant to my current career. I was well into adulthood at that time. Who cares where I went to highschool? It demonstrates respect for the time of the person tasked with reading a stack of resumes to not waste their time.

People probably don't care where you went to high school, but they probably care if you have a degree and when you got it. Most people go to university within a few years of finishing high school.

According to US statistics, "overall college enrollment rate of 18- to 24-year-olds (ages in which students traditionally enroll in college) was 38 percent in 2021".

So if by "most people" you mean, "less than half" then yes you are correct.

Most people who have a higher education degree. I thought that was implied as you even mentioned it in your comment "ages in which students traditionally enroll in college".

Unless you are trying to get a job with min/max age requirements, like airline pilot or us president, age provides no valuable information to potential employer other than a factor to illegally discriminate on.

Personally, I would say it shouldn't matter.

I wouldn't want to know the birth date of a person I was interviewing, and there's no need for my interviewer to know mine.

It wasn't on their résumé it was on their LinkedIn.

Although now the question becomes, why would you put your DOB on LinkedIn, which I have no idea.

I just looked at my LinkedIn and don't see anywhere that birthday is even displayed. This is clearly fake.

who doesn't?

I have never, ever put my birthday or age on a CV. Fuck that.

You act like we're talking about peepee lengths. Doesn't age seem something very relevant to consider when hiring someone?

I hardly see why it's relevant at all, no. It's like a fucking kids painting putting your age on there lmfao.

How is it relevant? Why should an employer care about your? All they should care about if you can do your job or not. It's also illegal in many places around the world to make a decision based on someones age.

I don't even have my age on mine.

Under GDPR you have a right for your application to be reviewed by a human rather than an automated rejection. Is there something like that in the country maybe?

Lol, not in the US.

Yes in the US. You can't discriminate based on age

You can't discriminate against someone for being older than 40. Being under 40 or having 4/20 as your birthday aren't protected groups.

I would still take legal action. This isn't ok.

If nothing else contact your local representative and news outlet

That is not what GDPR is about.

You could've done a simple search, or even write your comment in a way where you don't state it as a fact but instead you're now blatantly wrong.

On the one hand this is a bad that this happened to you, because the reasoning is completely idiotic.

On the other hand it can be a learning lesson that it's better to write your birthday as April 20th, and never as 4/20.

PS: Please name that company publicly. Maybe write a short mail to a website about tech news, like https://arstechnica.com or https://www.wired.com. You could also try the blog https://boingboing.net

Seems like they should really keep using 4/20, seems like an effective pre-screening tool for places I don't even want to walk by, let alone work at.

But that's still Hitler's birthday, which is very unprofessional.

Publicity will help prevent such major oversight. This is the problem with using AI for hiring practices instead of real people. Applying to jobs in the 2020s with a college degree, experience in the field, required employment history, and certifications STILL feels like applying for credit cards online with bad credit due to AI prematurely denying many applicants on frivolous grounds before it even gets to the recruiters email/web portal. That being said I don't think this person is the person who received the email themselves they are just posting it here.

It may not be worth listening to me on this because I only got to preliminary stages of looking for a new job before finding out that I would need to be a full time learning coach for my daughter's online school, but I had ChatGPT rewrite my resume for me. My reasoning was that if AI is weeding out resumes, they'll be less likely to weed out a resume written by what an AI thinks a resume should look like.

Why does a company even need your date of birth on an application?

For the $5 starbucks gift card they give out on employee birthdays

If you're in the US and can afford it, Talk to a lawyer.

This is blatant discrimination of a immutable attribute which is a Civil Rights violation.

This is written evidence to that fact.

I really hope OP goes through with the lawsuit because of how funny it is. I want to see it make big news

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This is why I assume this must be fake. Because even a trainee HR employee would look at that email, and not send it out.

Nobody looked at that email, it was automated

A hire rejection email. Idk, seems unlikely. Especially one that mentions a concrete reason for rejection.

Assuming they're checking the emails at all.

Remember when that guy decided to read a book while his Tesla was doing basic lane following, and merged into a semi? I 'member.

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“Nobody wants to work anymore”

why is your comment glowing golden for me?

Is it like a disgusting brown/yellow? I was having that all day yesterday but I don't see it on the post you're talking about.

We genuinely appreciate

🤣You obviously don't you dickheads

Reminds me of my sister getting in trouble for saying she had to go at 4:20. It was deemed "unprofessional". She has a appointment, lol

I fucking despise the fact that AI almost exclusively is responsible for throwing out 99% of all resumes before they reach a human being

This isn't just AI. AI doesn't care about jokes or memes or "professionalism." This was either a review by an actual human that didn't realize people are born on April 20th or an AI told to reject resumes with that date in it.

Either way, it's a really dumb person that set this rule.

My guess is it's programmed to reject 4/20 anywhere it finds it and the programmer didn't take into account that some values can just happen to be 4/20.

Although I have to ask- who would put any weed references on a resume that wasn't tailored for, say, a weed dispensary job?

I interviewed a guy whose dev career involved a (pretty good) front-end for a grow operation. I believe the ownership at that company may have opted against hiring because of that. I'll admit, I wasn't wowed by his skills enough to go to bat for him.

Hmm, might be a list of no go words they complied from somewhere. You're right, it's very unlikely that someone actively excluded 420 but maybe they downloaded a list of "bad words".

Sounds plausible. Could just be extremely lazy. "What about dates with 4/20" "Oh come on, how often will that legitimately occur"

The chances against it must be one in a million.

What is wrong with April 20th?

4:20 is the traditional time to smoke marijuana.

I'm not getting up that early. What's the point in having a drug habit if you don't get to lie in I thought that was the whole point?

4:20 p.m., known as 1620 in much of the world.

The problem isn't AI the problem is brainless humans who configured the AI.

AI isn't going to become skynet and take over the world unless someone tells it to. In which case the human is the problem.

Local company? Send it to the local news. They'll jump all over a reference to end of days AI.

Doesn't need to be AI. Just a simple filter to call out the offending information and what field it was in. Still crappy, and something AI would do, but there are cheaper ways to automate the enshittification of job applications.

If that's real and in the US that's age discrimination and you can sue, and easily win, even if they say it's not your age, but the date of your birthday it still would fall under discrimination based on age.

You can't teach an old dog new tricks because it is illegal

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Well, I hope that this gets someone in shit.

"Choose a better date to be born on next time, okay?"

Historical fun fact: this is why Hitler was rejected from art school in Vienna.

Fun fact for those downvoting that post: 4/20 was also Hitler’s birthday.

That’s the great thing about AI, it’s like a human! Humans don’t need to work anymore because our computers speak like us now! It’s only ever really a problem if someone reads what AI wrote.

But if you don’t read it, wow, just look at the spacing, the typography, the paragraphs! the tokens words!

My oldest child was almost born on 4/20, but he decided to cook a little longer.

My wife was so relieved, lol.

LOL! I was born on 4/20 too (and so was Hitler, btw ☹️)

See! They're trying to avoid hiring another Hitler!

That's dumb. Say what you will about hitler, but he was very efficient. Capitalists historically were major fans of hitler.

And vice versa. Hitler was a major fan of Henry Ford too.

He did think the capitalists who perpetuated the system of chattel slavery took the idea of eugenics too far though.

He certainly was very efficient when it came to killing Adolf Hitler.

Don't worry, that's also when Columbine and the Deepwater oil crisis happened too.

There are people laughing at them for not hiring someone born at 20th of April , very same folks riding elevators and not finding weird that the 13th floor is missing.

Who are these "same folks" that you're talking about?

Do I smell discrimination?

Age discrimination in the US at least is driven by "40 or over". I think any lawyer would be able to argue that "which day of the year you're born" is not indicitive of a protected class. Because we're fucked in the US and you can still formally be passed up on a job for being under 39 years old as long as you it's not because "you're almost 40, and we're not allowed to get rid of you when you turn 40"

That is what you get for having the same birthday as Hitler.

Maybe that's why they kicked him out of art school...

So the email validation guy is also writing date validation code?

I don't understand why the name of the company is redacted. They chose to send this letter, let 'em own it.

Damn, hopefully that won't happen to me. I was born on June 9th

You can only apply to jobs in European countries.

Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

Lol I’m just imagining whomever told AI to do this must have had a bad date with a Taurus. Your chakras are all wrong!!

Sue them for age discrimination and watch their lawyers sweat awhile.

That's not the case here

How so?

There's no year listed. Just a month and a day.

That's still age. Its not like this person can just change the day they were born. This is absolutely bs.

Age discrimination in the US only applies if you're discriminating against them for being over 40. This doesn't apply here since they're being rejected for their birthday and not their age.

I still don't think you can discriminate based on something a person has no control over. This person should file a complaint and name the company by name so I know to avoid it.

You absolutely can refuse to hire someone (in the US) for something they have no control of, assuming it's not one of the few protected classes. I could refuse to hire you over height, inability to grow facial hair, etc with zero repercussions.

That's only if it prevents you from doing your job. This is just downright dumb and rude.

This is news material

that's unfortunate. sure looks like they could use some competency in the area applied-for.

Honestly, they might even consider it fortunate that the company showed them it's cards now and not when they're their actual employer. Dodged a bullet.

I would spam them with even more "inappropriate" but equally plausible applications out of sheer pettiness and the vain hope that a real person would see it and realize that using AI to screen job applications is an awful idea.

I mean that's what you get for writing the date wrong :)

If that’s not a reason to write your dates in a less unhinged format, I don’t know what is.

It'd probably still flag on 1990-04-20 unfortunately, since the application probably didn't ask for birthday, but date of birth, which would have a year.

Honestly, if you ask for someone's date of birth and they just give you the month and day, that's about as useful as saying it was a Wednesday.

Honestly, if you ask for someone's date of birth and they just give you the month and day, that's about as useful as saying it was a Wednesday.

Which is honestly all you should feel obligated to give them, since it’s illegal to discriminate based on age. The only potential reason an employer would need to ask for birthday during hiring is to be able to distinguish between applicants with identical names.

It's also important for any background checks, as well as a huge swath of tax and HR information.

Age discrimination is super illegal, but knowing an applicants age is not.

I just put the month name instead of the month number personally, assuming this is in response to a resume sent in and not an online form.

So, uh, what was on 4/20?

It's a reference to smoking weed. Reread it with that in mind and it'll be clear.

Hitler's death.

Close. He died on 4/30, he was born on 4/20. But there were many deaths at Columbine High School on 4/20/1999.

My bad. Only good thing Hitler did though.

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People: “AI is going to take over the world!”

AI:

Ignoring my first instinct, I tried to imagine some context to this, and if someones linkedin profile says he is in his 30s with a lot of experience, but somehow after applying, they got a cv of a 20 year old with little experience, it put them into a situation where the first impression based on this breaks the trust they try to build with an applicant.

It is probably still not wise to point out the age discrepancy, but i can see how I wouldn't want to work with someone who I only know for 5 seconds but already confused me.

There is a chance, the letter was written by an AI, but equaly can be a corporate template.

If it was a typo, and the difference is only a couple days, tough luck, maybe you should remove the "attention to details" part from your cv. :D

What? How old are you?

Op is 54 years old

How do you know?

It means April 20th, not April 2020.

OP can always say they meant April 1920 and sue for age discrimination.

If you were normal... 20/4/19xx ... or 20th of April, 19xx. If you insist on freedom units and format, its your own fault!

Also, who knows what it was written to identify? you are all speculating. It could have been weed smokers (420) but it could also have been written to filter out the yanks...!