Vibrant, dynamic, gravitas, ambitious, hungry and 17 other words or phrases have been banned by one of Britain's top recruitment agencies for fear of falling foul of new anti-ageism laws.
Robert Walters, which employs 1,300 staff in 14 countries and places thousands of recruitment adverts a year, has issued internal guidance that the banned words should "under no circumstances appear in any Robert Walters advertising from this point forward".
The banned list begins with words such as young, old and mature, which are widely held to constitute obvious breaches of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations, which came into effect on October 1, making discrimination on the basis of age unlawful.
However, the list goes on to include energetic, youthful, vibrant, quick-learner, self-starter, high-flyer, gravitas, newly-qualified, soon-to-be-qualified, dynamic, experienced, ambitious and recent graduate.
Hungry is not deemed acceptable, presumably even for advertisements seeking to fill food-tasting vacancies.
Steve Edwards, 31, Robert Walters marketing director, said: "We are just being cautious and have defined guidelines on what you can and cannot say."
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