{"id":9807,"date":"2022-06-15T11:28:30","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T09:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/discriminatory-job-advertisements-young-team-with-flat-hierarchies\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T16:21:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:21:55","slug":"discriminatory-job-advertisements-young-team-with-flat-hierarchies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/en\/discriminatory-job-advertisements-young-team-with-flat-hierarchies\/","title":{"rendered":"Discriminatory Job Advertisements: &#8220;Young Team with Flat Hierarchies&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u27a1\ufe0f The Berlin\/Brandenburg Regional Labor Court (5 Sa 1573\/20) addressed the question of whether a startup&#8217;s job advertisement discriminated against older applicants. The startup had advertised in a job posting that applicants could expect a &#8220;young team with flat hierarchies that gives you real creative freedom.&#8221; A rejected applicant (born in 1972) filed a lawsuit, arguing that the job advertisement disadvantaged older applicants and therefore constituted age discrimination within the meaning of the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG).   <br\/><br\/>\u2757\ufe0f AGG lawsuits are particularly feared because they can quickly lead to compensation claims by rejected applicants, and there are individuals who specifically apply to allegedly discriminatory job advertisements for this reason. However, in its dismissive ruling, the Regional Labor Court clarified that the wording in the startup&#8217;s job advertisement made no reference to the age of potential new employees of the company and therefore did not constitute age discrimination: <br\/><br\/>1\ufe0f\u20e3 No age-related selection criteria or preferences were formulated in the job posting; the mention of the term &#8220;young team&#8221; was put into perspective by the fact that this statement was not made in connection with &#8220;We are looking for.&#8221;<br\/>2\ufe0f\u20e3 In connection with the fact that the defendant was prominently described as a &#8220;startup,&#8221; this term pair should be understood in the sense of &#8220;young, i.e., newly founded company.&#8221; Information about the age of the company says nothing about the age of the employees working there.<br\/>3\ufe0f\u20e3 Additionally, under the heading &#8220;we offer,&#8221; no expectations of applicants were described. The required &#8220;initial experience in account management or sales&#8221; likewise provided no indication of &#8220;young age,&#8221; but rather referred to a quality that older applicants were more likely to possess.<br\/>4\ufe0f\u20e3 Finally, the designation &#8220;(Junior) Key Account Manager&#8221; merely indicated an internal company hierarchy level.  <br\/><br\/>\u26a1\ufe0f The Regional Labor Court&#8217;s observation that the use of informal address forms was not an indication that only young people were being addressed is also interesting, as this is nowadays a common way of addressing employees in many companies.<br\/><br\/>An excellent practical ruling that demonstrates the Regional Labor Court&#8217;s ability to appropriately reflect the reality of many young companies in the startup sector. Incidentally, gender-neutral language was used in the Regional Labor Court&#8217;s ruling\u2014a circumstance that personally pleases me, but which I have never noticed before in a court ruling. <br\/><br\/>\u27a1\ufe0f How do you formulate your job advertisements with regard to possible AGG violations? Or do you perhaps no longer use traditional job advertisements at all? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u27a1\ufe0f The Berlin\/Brandenburg Regional Labor Court (5 Sa 1573\/20) addressed the question of whether a startup&#8217;s job advertisement discriminated against older applicants. The startup had advertised in a job posting that applicants could expect a &#8220;young team with flat hierarchies that gives you real creative freedom.&#8221; A rejected applicant (born in 1972) filed a lawsuit, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unkategorisiert"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Discriminatory Job Advertisements<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When is a job advertisement discriminatory and what should you watch out for? \u27a4 Learn more now 030 91432015\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/en\/discriminatory-job-advertisements-young-team-with-flat-hierarchies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Discriminatory Job Advertisements\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When is a job advertisement discriminatory and what should you watch out for? \u27a4 Learn more now \u260e\ufe0f +49 176 34479505\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/en\/discriminatory-job-advertisements-young-team-with-flat-hierarchies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Allenstein Legal - Digitale Kanzlei f\u00fcr Arbeitsrecht\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-06-15T09:28:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-06-25T14:21:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/VSP_2021_2302_by_viktor_strasse-Kopie-1024x1024-1-300x300.webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anne Lachmund - Anwalt f\u00fcr Arbeitsrecht Berlin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Anne Lachmund - Anwalt f\u00fcr Arbeitsrecht Berlin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Discriminatory Job Advertisements","description":"When is a job advertisement discriminatory and what should you watch out for? \u27a4 Learn more now 030 91432015","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/en\/discriminatory-job-advertisements-young-team-with-flat-hierarchies\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Discriminatory Job Advertisements","og_description":"When is a job advertisement discriminatory and what should you watch out for? \u27a4 Learn more now \u260e\ufe0f +49 176 34479505","og_url":"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/en\/discriminatory-job-advertisements-young-team-with-flat-hierarchies\/","og_site_name":"Allenstein Legal - Digitale Kanzlei f\u00fcr Arbeitsrecht","article_published_time":"2022-06-15T09:28:30+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-06-25T14:21:55+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/VSP_2021_2302_by_viktor_strasse-Kopie-1024x1024-1-300x300.webp","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Anne Lachmund - Anwalt f\u00fcr Arbeitsrecht Berlin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Anne Lachmund - Anwalt f\u00fcr Arbeitsrecht Berlin","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":["Article","BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/en\/discriminatory-job-advertisements-young-team-with-flat-hierarchies\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/en\/discriminatory-job-advertisements-young-team-with-flat-hierarchies\/"},"author":{"name":"Anne Lachmund - Anwalt f\u00fcr Arbeitsrecht Berlin","@id":"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/cc8ffbef8daeec93b48bd2cb26700c4c"},"headline":"Discriminatory Job Advertisements: &#8220;Young Team with Flat Hierarchies&#8221;","datePublished":"2022-06-15T09:28:30+00:00","dateModified":"2026-06-25T14:21:55+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/en\/discriminatory-job-advertisements-young-team-with-flat-hierarchies\/"},"wordCount":415,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/en\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Unkategorisiert"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/en\/discriminatory-job-advertisements-young-team-with-flat-hierarchies\/","url":"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/en\/discriminatory-job-advertisements-young-team-with-flat-hierarchies\/","name":"Discriminatory Job Advertisements","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/allenstein.legal\/en\/#website"},"datePublished":"2022-06-15T09:28:30+00:00","dateModified":"2026-06-25T14:21:55+00:00","description":"When is a job advertisement discriminatory and what should you watch out for? 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