The social network of actors influencing age discrimination in the human resources recruiting process

The aim of the paper is to map the area where the social construction of age discrimination in the recruiting process is perceived as taking place, especially those individuals or organized groups with enough power and interest to influence this unethical reality. The research was carried out in 2010 and 2011 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania; it uses multiple qualitative methods (focus-group and interviews) and covers three layers of perception: candidate’s perception, employer’s perception and recruiter’s perception. Usually, the main social actors publically perceived as influencing age discrimination in the recruiting process are the employers (as the main responsible), some public institutions (as guardians) and the candidates (as victims). The findings of the paper show that the number of social actors perceived as interested and with power by the main social actors (employers and candidates) is much higher than the number classically targeted by researchers, reaching 20 or more.