Discrimination in job adverts

You must not state or imply in a job advert that you’ll discriminate against anyone. This includes saying that you are not able to cater for workers with a disability.

Only use phrases like ‘recent graduate’ or ‘highly experienced’ when these are actual requirements of the job. Otherwise you could discriminate against younger or older people who might not have had the opportunity to get qualifications.

Where you advertise might cause indirect discrimination - for example, advertising only in men’s magazines.

Get help advertising a job without discriminating

Questions you cannot ask when recruiting

You must not ask candidates about ‘protected characteristics’ or whether they:

are married, single or in a civil partnership

have children or plan to have children

Asking about health or disability

You can only ask about health or disability if:

there are necessary requirements of the job that cannot be met with reasonable adjustments

you’re finding out if someone needs help to take part in a selection test or interview

you’re using ‘positive action’ to recruit a disabled person

You might be breaking the law if any discrimination happens during their recruitment process, even if you use a recruitment agency.

You can only ask for someone’s date of birth on an application form if they must be a certain age to do the job, for example selling alcohol.

You can ask someone their date of birth on a separate equality monitoring form. You should not let the person selecting or interviewing candidates see this form.

Spent criminal convictions

Applicants do not have to tell you about criminal convictions that are spent. You must treat the applicant as if the conviction has not happened, and cannot refuse to employ the person because of their conviction.

There are some areas of employment that are exempt from this rule, for example schools.

Trade union membership

You must not use membership of a trade union as a factor in deciding whether to employ someone. This includes:

not employing someone because they’re a member of a trade union

insisting someone joins a trade union before you’ll employ them

Employing people with protected characteristics

You can choose a candidate who has a protected characteristic over one who does not if they’re both suitable for the job and you think that people with that characteristic:

are underrepresented in the workforce, profession or industry

suffer a disadvantage connected to that characteristic (for example people from a certain ethnic group are not often given jobs in your sector)

You can only do this if you’re trying to address the under-representation or disadvantage for that particular characteristic. You must make decisions on a case by case basis and not because of a certain policy.

You cannot choose a candidate who is not as suitable for the job just because they have a protected characteristic.

When a disabled person and a non-disabled person both meet the job requirements, you can treat the disabled person more favourably.