Qfyilyi

Is this discriminatory? No, probably not. Is it inappropriate to put in a job ad? Yes, most definitely.

First, I'm going to assume that your colleague just wants to include the "bonus" section for flavor and doesn't actually want to judge hiring based on SNES skills, because to do so would just be moronic.

Second, unless you are hiring a video game tester, having a section on video game skills just doesn't make any sense and will only confuse your potential candidates. Most people looking at the ad will spend a minute or two trying to figure out how serious that section is. And if they determine it's not serious, then they'll have to figure out if there's any other parts of the advertisement that weren't meant to be serious. It makes it difficult to figure out what you really want from a candidate, which also makes it hard for recruiters to figure out who to send your way.

Third, it looks unprofessional. If I saw that in a job ad I'd figure the company was a startup made by some college buddies and not someplace I'd really want to depend on a paycheck from. But maybe you have a really laid-back culture like that and you want to put that out there from the beginning. Just know that you'll eliminate a lot of prospects because of it.

Back to your original question though, I wouldn't worry about discrimination. There's no such thing as "geek discrimination," and this wouldn't qualify as age discrimination since someone of any age can be a fan of SNES games.

No discrimination.

Yes, you're overreacting.

...and you diminish a very important protection mechanism with banal nonsense !

In fact employers are free to chose their employees' suitable qualifications and personalities as they please and they deem fitting into their company.

Discrimination is to reject because of race, gender, religion, age etc.

Check antidiscrimination laws in your country, you won't find video games in the list...

I do agree though, it is not the smartest decision to include that.

It's not even required for the job, just for the one hiring to have someone like minded to hang out with.
One could argue however it is to build a certain company climate, which is fine to do nonetheless.

EDIT:
I don't see the post age discriminatory either.

A) growing up around the times of SNES is just a BONUS
B) hiring someone for example in a senior capacity with X years experience, thus excluding a certain age group (young), is perfectly legal and not discrimination at all.

Age discrimination would be if a young and old person fit the job description criteria and they hire the young person, "because young".

Please check the following U.S. law for further details:
https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/agedisc

Big thanks to Richard U for providing the link!

§623. Prohibition of age discrimination

(a) Employer practices

It shall be unlawful for an employer—



(1) to fail or refuse to hire [...]

    any individual[...]because of such individual's age;



(f) Lawful practices; age an occupational qualification; 

    other reasonable factors; laws of foreign workplace;  

    seniority system; employee benefit plans; 

    discharge or discipline for good cause

It shall not be unlawful [...]



(1) to take any action otherwise prohibited[...]

where age is a bona fide occupational qualification 

reasonably necessary to the normal operation[...]

or where the differentiation is based on 

reasonable factors other than age[...]

or where such practices involve an employee 

in a workplace in a foreign country, and compliance

[...]would cause[...]to violate the 

laws of the country in which such workplace is located;

Keep in mind, other countries will have different laws...

Am I wrong in thinking this is unnecessary and could be perceived as
discriminatory?

Anything can be perceived as discriminatory. But only a lawsuit would determine if it is actually discriminatory or not and that's unlikely to happen.

It is completely unnecessary. Not a smart way to advertise for help, IMHO.

It's clear you have a reasonable worry, since ads which are designed to deter older people from applying might be deemed discriminatory: https://www.bizfilings.com/toolkit/research-topics/office-hr/case-studies-of-age-discrimination-in-job-ads

But, practically speaking, it's extremely unlikely to ever get that far. Try not to worry.

Unless you are this person's boss, or unless you are the hiring manager, there's not much you can do. There are a lot of stupid job ads out there. Maybe after a few interviews, they will realize that the ad isn't attracting the right kind of candidate. Maybe not. They may well get a "personality" out of this ad. Hopefully, you get a good worker too.

No, this is not discrimination, and confronting someone over what amounts to nothing more than an impish rider to a job ad is not going to be well received.

As someone with disabilities who has suffered actual discrimination, I find such trivializing of a real problem in the workplace highly irritating. If I were at your company I would ask people to seriously reconsider what your future with the company would be from that point, and have HR flag you as a potential troublemaker.

I say this not to berate you, but to show you how badly an overreaction could harm YOUR career by triggering a backlash.

Right now, there are articles in the news every single day about someone doing something as an overreaction. The principal disciplined for banning candy canes, among others comes to mind. An accusation of discrimination can ruin someone's career, and as such, the blowback from a false one can have a similar effect.

In short, never confront someone about discrimination unless you're sure, and you've got proof, or it could end badly for you.

That said:

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) protects certain applicants and employees 40 years of age and older from discrimination on the basis of age in hiring, promotion, discharge, compensation, or terms, conditions or privileges of employment. The ADEA is enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

So, no, not by any legal definition is it age discrimination.

For reference:

https://www.bizfilings.com/toolkit/research-topics/office-hr/case-studies-of-age-discrimination-in-job-ads

Thanks to Joe Strazzere for providing that link.

Suppose the hiring manager was a woman and she announced that she thought the ideal candidate for the IT role was someone who had worked needlepoint as a hobby. Oh, and scrapbooked. It would fit the "corporate culture" she was trying to create. And she'd done those things herself as a younger person and felt that they contribute greatly to the person she is, and the workplace skills she has.

Discriminatory? She assures you she'd be happy to hire a man who had done these things!

But of course it's discriminatory. Any selection criteria which is not in-and-of itself a bona fide job requirement but which correlates with gender, age or culture is systemically discriminatory.

So if you're hiring a programmer, or accountant, or truck driver, you can't say you want someone who's played college football any more than you can prefer a former cheerleader.

Corporate culture can't be an excuse for discrimination. It can be a form of discrimination, if the the corporate culture is inherently discriminatory--if it can't work with women, or people of different cultures, or different religions.

Your hiring manager has confused a place of employment with a private club. He's welcome to start an SNES society that meets in his man cave at home, but as an employer he's got to play by the rules. Your company needs to do itself a big favour and retain the services of a good HR consultant to vet their hiring process.

1) "Bonus" qualifications are just that, "bonus". If you have those qualifications, then you are looked on as a better candidate. It's like "We want a Java developer, bonus if you also know Angular".

2) Not being familiar with SNES games is not any more age discriminatory than not being familiar with COBOL or FORTRAN or BASIC. Replace SNES with COBOL on the JD and see if it still feels discriminatory. If not, then it's not discriminatory (in the "can I be sued for this" sense, although it may be discriminatory in other ways). IANAL but I feel sufficiently confident saying this.

3) It might not be appropriate to have on a JD though, because it makes the company feel a bit unprofessional. Like, "if I work for this company, am I going to have my salary capped based on how good I am at Mortal Kombat?" It might be something to come up in the interview, if such a conversation can easily be raised without feeling awkward.

tl;dr: You are not wrong in thinking it is unnecessary. You are wrong in thinking it would be perceived as discriminatory by a reasonable applicant (although this is somewhat opinion). If I was the HR manager, I would not want to hire someone who would perceive such a thing as discriminatory; such a person would not be a good culture fit at a company I was in charge of.

It is quite obviously discrimination. It is also quite obviously not illegal discrimination. On the third hand, you will be losing out on some good candidates.

You may reject a candidate who hasn't grown up playing these games (but may be willing to accept candidates who refused to grow up while playing these games). And candidates of all ages will think that your advert is rather childish and ignore you.

The person hiring and writing the job ad loves SNES video games and grew up around that time.

It's hard to tell if this same person is also running your team. From what I gather this person's job is to interview and hire talent.

With that said, can you bring it up to your team's lead? Also, in your day to day job, are you or coworkers playing SNES games? So it's misleading if no one except this person is playing or into SNES.

If the person doing the job ad is also your team's lead, I would bring up that this could lead to potential conflict especially if he's friendly on the ground that the person is into SNES games. I had coworkers in the past who got friendly with the boss by playing online games for hours. Things went south when the boss and coworker had a conflict and discipline had to be done. It caused a fallout.