Online recruitment technology can play a major part in helping businesses implement appropriate new procedures, when it comes to the new Age Discrimination legislation. By using online applications and back office support systems, businesses can control and record the recruitment process, to help ensure that hiring decisions are based on skills and capabilities rather than age related information.

By capturing data such as date of birth in the online application process and then ensuring it is hidden from recruiters and hiring managers doing the selection, businesses can help ensure that pre-screening or dis-qualification based on age is eliminated, but the audit data for compliance is still captured.

Taleo EMEA marketing director Chris Phillips says, "Recruitment is going to be one of the most obvious issues with the new age legislation. Organisations need to change the way they advertise for, assess and select employees, as well as how they record recruitment processes. As we start to see test cases coming out, organisations will be required to show that they have been compliant. This is very hard to do if it's just an HR manager selecting CVs from a pile, with no evidence on why decisions have been made."