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I recently inquired about employment opportunities with a full-service, casual-themed restaurant chain. After a few questions concerning training, I expressed interest in a management position with the company. The person on the other end of the line tersely asked, "How old are you?"

I wanted to invoke Tina Turner and ask, "What's age got to do with it?" Instead, I quickly hung up the phone, bristling at the audacious question of age.

After some contemplation I called the store again and reiterated my previous conversation with a manager. After our in-depth discussion, the manager was convinced that his store had just violated the main premise of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967.

The ADEA protects individuals who are 40 years and older from employment discrimination based on age. The ADEA's protections apply to both employees and job applicants. Under the ADEA, it is unlawful to discriminate against a person because of his age with respect to any term, condition, or privilege of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, firing, promotion, layoff, compensation, job assignments and training.

While the law is a terrible thing to break, a more fundamental question should be promulgated: why would anyone use age as a negative screening factor when the restaurant industry needs to fill more than 2 million jobs during the next decade?

A Colorado restaurant company seems to have grasped the significance of recruiting over 30 years old. As described in a story in Nation's Restaurant News (NRN), Hacienda Colorado has witnessed an influx of people over 30 seeking entry-level hourly positions. For some, the positions have transformed their respective careers, prompting them to pursue leadership roles in restaurant management. They have found out what many of us already know: the restaurant industry provides vibrant careers full of unlimited opportunity and professional challenges.

While some smaller restaurant companies have benefited from actively promoting age diversity, many national players have ignored age diversity as a prominent recruiting tool. Those brands may emphasize diversity in their mission statements, but do they practice what they preach when it comes to the issue of age?

Diversity is based on the notion that a company's employee demographics closely mirror those of its guests. For the larger brands, employee diversity is ostensible in regard to race and gender. Ensuring age diversity, however, is not a pervasive practice. The

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