Could your age or name work against you on the Czech job market?

Finding a job in Czechia can be challenging for reasons that have little to do with your skills or experience. A new study suggests that who you are or what employers can infer about you from your CV may also affect how likely you are to get a response.

Research from the Deputy Ombudsman's Office and Masaryk University found differences in employer responses to vacancies advertised as suitable for third-country nationals, as well as a measurable age penalty for a measurable age penalty for male job seekers that begins in middle age.

The findings emerged from a correspondence experiment designed to identify discriminatory patterns in the Czech labor market. Researchers sent 4,280 applications from fictional male job seekers aged 40 to 55 to vacancies listed in the Labour Office database.

Applications from candidates with common Czech names received significantly fewer positive responses for positions marked as suitable for third-country nationals than for other positions, according to the study.

The candidates had common Czech names, lived near the advertised jobs and had CVs that met the requirements for the positions. Their exact ages were not stated, although employers could estimate them from information such as the year they completed their education.

The study does not establish whether having a foreign-sounding name helps or hurts an applicant. Instead, it found that employer responses differed depending on whether the vacancy was advertised as suitable for third-country nationals.

The researchers also found that men's chances of receiving a positive response began to decline after 40.

Among applicants aged 40 to 44, 28.9 percent received a positive response from an employer. For men aged 51 to 55, the response rate was almost three percentage points lower.

Overall, each additional year of age reduced the likelihood of a positive response by an average of 0.3 percentage points, according to Štěpán Mikula, a researcher at Masaryk University's Faculty of Economics and Administration.

“Discrimination against people of pre-retirement age is a known problem that has been confirmed by many studies across European countries,” Mikula said. “However, the experiment showed that age discrimination starts much earlier.”

The researchers said the findings show that job seekers can face disadvantages unrelated to their abilities or qualifications.

“When people are disadvantaged when looking for work for reasons that are not related to their abilities or qualifications, this not only violates the principle of equal treatment, but also results in the loss of valuable human potential,” Deputy Ombudsman Vít Alexander Schorm said.

A correspondence experiment allows researchers to send standardized applications from fictional candidates to real employers while keeping qualifications and other characteristics consistent.

This makes it possible to compare employer responses while changing particular characteristics of the applicants.

In this case, the researchers created profiles for men aged 40 to 55 with common Czech names, nearby residences and CVs tailored to the requirements of each job.

The applicants' ages were not stated directly. Employers could infer them from their education history.

Czech employers generally should not ask job applicants about their age, but age can often be estimated from information on a CV.

Job seekers also rarely know why they were rejected, making discrimination difficult to identify or prove.

The deputy ombudsman's office cited a case involving a man who applied for a job with an automotive company and was rejected after recruiters said his age was a problem because the work was physically demanding. The office was ultimately unable to prove discrimination.

In another case, an employer advertising for a receptionist-wellness attendant said it preferred women aged 25 to 40 because of the supposed “unreliability and fickleness” of young women. The ombudsman's office found discrimination based on both age and gender.