A report in today's Guardian reveals a novel approach being adopted by organisations keen to eradicate ageism from their recruitment processes.
Call centre company Inkfish and retail giant B&Q are amongst those companies using telephone interviewing, something the Guardian says is now the fastest growing form of recruitment interviews.
Telephone interviews are apparently the least likely of all selection procedures to discriminate, a point highlighted by Inkfish’s HR manager. "Telephone interviewing soon proved a good way of avoiding any kind of discrimination by young folk who can think people are over the hill at 40. It worked perfectly because if you can't see someone, you don't know how old he or she is."
Nevertheless, as Angela Baron, employee resourcing adviser for the CIPD, points out: "Telephone interviews are no substitute for more detailed interviewing. Instead, they are a very good preliminary device that prevents companies from rejecting on the basis of an application form alone."