How is this job posting legal? (requiring applicants to be under 37) | Hacker News Reader

How is this job posting legal? (requiring applicants to be under 37)

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3 pointsromwell7 comments

Note that discrimination based on age generally only applies to applicants 40 or older. For example, companies can restrict hiring to people over 18 (e.g. to sell cigarettes), over 21 (to sell alcohol), over 35 (to be president) but they cannot say no applicants over 50.

These laws protect you against employment discrimination when it involves:

Unfair treatment because of your race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.

https://www.eeoc.gov/federal/fed_employees/index.cfm

Indeed, but isn't this exactly what is happening here?

Quoting:

>Key Requirements

>You must:

> Be at least 23 and not have reached your 37th birthday on appointment.

The listing explicitly bans people over 37 from applying.

An applicant over 40 has certainly reached their 37th birthday!

And they even note that they are a proud equal opportunity employer and don't discriminate based on age. The fact is they will hire older people, just not as special agents. Special agents have a mandatory retirement age of 57 so anyone older than 37 will not be able to work 20 years (required for government penaion). I'm not sure if a private sector employer could get away with that.

I’m curious why they have the mandatory retirement age.

Notice the physical fitness requirements and the requirement to participate in raids?

This is almost military. Think about going into boot camp. There is in fact some version of that for this job.

That doesn't seem to align with job functions (education, training, writing/editing) and the fact that they're recruiting tenured university professors for this job.

And "almost military" doesn't mean military; military is exempt from ADEA, but FBI, in general, is not.

Maybe someone copy-pasted key requirements from an army-type position for this desk/teaching job, but even then they explicitly say at the bottom that they don't discriminate based on age.

This is a job posting for a special agent position.

37 is the cut-off limit for special agents for the FBI (except for a veteran waiver). https://www.fbiagentedu.org/careers/fbi-special-agent/become...

Special agents is a 6c position, with a mandatory requirement age of 57 with 20 years. https://www.opm.gov/retirement-services/special-notices/#cov... .

As such, "The law also allows federal agencies to establish maximum entry age of 36 or 37, which allows the employee to attain the 20 years of service before the mandatory retirement age" http://www.federalretirement.net/eligibility20years.htm#Maxi...

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