Dear J.T. & Dale: When I decided to go back to professional work, I had to deal with the standard request for the date of my graduation from high school. I certainly don’t see the job relevance. This practice automatically provides the employer with the age of the applicant, who can then use whatever excuse is handy not to interview/hire the applicant. Why is it legal to ask for information that is not supposed to be considered in hiring? — John

Dale: As soon as I saw “legal” in your question, I knew it was time to turn to our favorite employment attorney, Scott Gordon of the Rodey Law Firm in Albuquerque, N.M. Scott surprised me: It turns out that asking for age or date of birth is NOT illegal and, in fact, is specifically allowed for in federal regulations. “However,” he added, “the regulations also state that employment applications requiring age will be ‘closely scrutinized to ensure that the request is for a permissible purpose.’ Thus, an employer would have to be very careful to articulate a legitimate business reason for asking that question.”

J.T.: The legitimate reason could be establishing a timeline of career progress or, as Scott put it so well: “It may simply be that a prudent employer wants to verify that John graduated from a particular school and it’s helpful to know his graduation date. That’s the kind of employer I’d want to have. Resume fraud is a big problem these days.”

Dale: So, John, the age cat is going to get out of the bag. Should you have any evidence that an employer is using age information for discrimination, Scott urges you to seek an employment attorney in your state. However, unless it’s something truly blatant, I’d urge you, as a fellow old guy, to consider the Wisdom of the Shrug: Simply say to yourself: “It could be age bias (shrug), could be something else (shrug). The real issue is, How do I get around whatever it is?”

J.T.: The best way around it is to make an impression on employers BEFORE they see your application. In person or by phone you have the chance to brand yourself as a viable candidate, thus making the questions on the application irrelevant. That’s just another reason why we stress networking as the ultimate job-search strategy.