Date of birth, either by request from employer or voluntarily given by employee, is not illegal. However, anyone with half a brain won't use it since that's just asking for a discrimination lawsuit since there is no more plausible deniability.

Alas, it is trivial for employers to guess a candidate's age with resonable accuracy, as most people have their education timeline in their resume.

I'd think most people who are worried about age discrimination would drop their matriculation year from their resume.

Yep this and I’ve been told by my Caucasian friends that they can’t tell the age of Black men if we are clean shaven and shave our hair off to cut the gray and re ending hairline. Most guess that I am at most in my early 30s - not my mid 40s.

I always go completely clean shaven with a bald head when I interview.

Not always. Folks can obtain a degree later in life to throw off the ageism detector.

Yes. But you usually don't do that to trigger an aegism detector. Also, if you include previous work experiences (with dates obviously) one can still determine how old you are.

Nevertheless, once you go there in person for your interview, people will notice anyway.

I only include my last 10 years of experience and don’t include the year I graduated. Not only to reduce the chance of ageism, but my experience with Perl, VB6, MFC, DCOM, etc. is not relevant.

If applying in a market with rampant ageism why not just leave specific dates off altogether. Just list degrees received and durations of employment.

oh yeah and how do you make up for the years of experience then? fake jobs entries?

I'm 36. If I get a degree in a new field and work 15 years, I'll be 55, but my resume will say I have a Bachelor's degree with 15 years of experience.

I picked up my BCE at 36. Of course now that I am 58, even 44 is getting to the outer edge for those who would discriminate.

Or just don’t include more than a year or two of job history prior to the degree.

Imagine his career lasts just as long, he just starts at his 40s

Requesting Years of experience can also be considered discrimination

FFS, It's not illegal discrimination.

In the USA discrimination is 100% legal if 1) the group being discriminated against is not specifically defined as a protected group under law OR 2) it's a legitimate job requirement.

Requiring programmers to know how to program also discriminates against non-programmers but non-programmers aren't a protected group.

Requiring a stocker to be able to lift 30 pounds discriminates against the disabled. The disabled are a protected group, but it's a legitimate job requirement for a stocker to be able to move the stock around.

If you're hiring for a senior engineer it's not illegal discrimination because 1) it's a legitimate job requirement and 2) young people are not a protected group under law (only people over 40 are)

Out of my own personal curiosity. How does the protection for people over 40 work?

in which world? because every job posting I have ever seen requires years of doing x or y.

Leave the date off your degree. Leave out experience prior to date X, or leave dates off ancient history experience entries.

Or use a “functional” style resume.

It is a fig leaf intended to discourage age discrimination.