Consider this…your whole life you see yourself as a productive, energetic, and enthusiastic contributor to society… and then all of a sudden you’re not.
So how did that happen?
For me, it started at work. It was observed by many of my colleagues, that, of the many lay-offs in the Information Technology department, the majority of us appeared to fall within the same demographic (late 40s and 50s). Now, was it coincidence? Was it to get rid of the expensive ones? Or were we just shitty at our jobs? Who knows, but starting in March, age became a topic of discussion for a whole bunch of us. Who knew?!
During that same time, I also began networking; meeting with recruiters as well as former colleagues who had been looking for work over the past year. I wanted to understand their perspectives and experiences about the job market. Without prompting, every person I spoke to, my age or older, warned me that the cards are stacked against us older folk when looking for work, and the older we get, the higher the stack. I honestly had no idea that this would be an issue. For the last 10 years I had been told that the baby boomers were retiring, there was going to be a “brain drain”, and experienced individuals would be prized possessions. Now none of that seems to be true anymore. As a result, within weeks I became paranoid, and I started questioning my relevance in this world as I age. Ridiculous, I know, but I have no doubt in my mind that I am not alone, and my sense is, the older we get, the more we question where it is we fit, and how we can contribute in a meaningful way.
So now I have all of these questions:
Is age really a barrier to finding work?
Do we all have an unconscious bias about age?
Are those of us on the north side of 50 feeding the bias by sometimes behaving in certain ways which validate the stereotypes? Hmmm…what are those stereotypes?
For those of you in your 20s, 30s, and even 40s; do you think about age when hiring, or working with others? Would you rather work with people like yourself, or do you see the value you can get from the wisdom of someone with more experience?
Is age part of the diversity equation in the workforce? I think it’s covered under our charter of rights in Canada, but is it focused on at work? When I think of diversity at work, I think of colour, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and disabilities. Until now, I never thought about age.
Does looking for a "strong cultural fit" equate to looking for young people?
Do you believe in mutually beneficial relationships between young and old? What I mean is, a symbiotic relationship where both parties get something positive out of it.
So many questions, with so many potential answers and experiences I’m sure. In the interest of time, I am only going to share my experience with the first one; Is age a barrier to finding work? The rest we can cover in the future.
As I indicated at the beginning of this blog, most of the people I was talking with felt that age could be a barrier to finding work. One lady in particular (she was a recruiter) said she and her colleagues knew which organizations did not hire older people. She did not know if age was the reason, but there was a clear and noticeable pattern of behaviour in those organizations. She told me not to expect much from those companies.
Now, not everyone agrees with this age thing being a barrier… I remember the day I met with HR and received my termination papers. I knew this was coming. We had all known about it for many weeks, but for whatever reason, the finality of it all caught up with me and I became quite sad and emotional. At the end of my meeting with HR, I was ushered into a room where I was introduced to a representative from a Career Transition Services organization. His name was Bob. When Bob saw my emotional state, he knew exactly what to do. He commiserated and empathized with me on my situation, he talked about being laid-off 3 times himself. He was blunt and to the point. I loved the guy! Did I also mention that Bob was in his 70s? I honestly believe that he was selected to be in that room because of his age. His ability to empathize, show support, speak to experience, and comfort so easily came across with so much more oomph because of his age. Something to think about… there are some roles that are just better suited for an older, wiser, more empathetic and trusting person, and that was one of them.
Anyway, at a subsequent meeting with Bob, I asked him if he thought age was a barrier to looking for work. He strongly said no and actually seemed a little pissed I’d even ask the question. At first glance, I thought he was in denial and full of shit, but actually I think Bob was on to something.
Now I still disagree with Bob somewhat, because age can be a barrier. There were many people, Bob included, who coached me on resume writing. I was told to to remove the gradation date from my education. I was told to show no more that 20 years’ job experience. So Bob, if age is not a barrier, why do I have to purposely leave out information on my resume so people won’t guess my true age? Hey Bob, hey! What do you have to say about that?!
But hang on, because I also think Bob should be a model for this discussion. Age for him wasn’t a barrier because of how he projected himself. He behaved in a way that exhibited the wisdom and credibility that comes with age, but he was also refreshing. Refreshing sounds odd, but it’s the only word I can think of right now. Translated I guess it would amount to health, confidence, positivity, and most importantly, humour. It felt good to be in his presence.
So I guess, even though, YES, we are predisposed to a certain amount of prejudice as we, I think it’s what we do and how we project ourselves that helps to change the prejudice.
I think age, unfortunately, is a barrier even it shouldn't be as first because it's also some sort very rude discrimination. Every company, community or society considering itself as fair, open-minded and democratic should think and take care of it.
From my personal experience, being fired (6 years ago at the age of 44) literally overnight and completely out of the blue, I found myself in an entirely new situation looking for a job.
On one of the interviews, I thought I didn't understand it well when I was told how I am too experienced for their company. - lol - Very nice formulation to tell someone, in other words, being too old.
On another one (it was a smaller company with 30-something CEO) who realized during the interview that I know more than he does, so it was more than obvious he was threatened for his own position in the company if he hires me. Therefore, I've been told, as he couldn't find any better explanation that I for some (undisclosed) reason don't quite fit to the company vision.
There were plenty of those totally irrational stupidities I had to face at the time. They were quite innovative in making excuses and explanations.
In the beginning, I was stunned, completely shocked and surprised, frustrated, even quite hurt, demotivated and finally depressed with all this.
But, after some time I completely changed my attitude into something like: "I'm challenging you curious to see if you are smart enough to have on your team someone who holds the answers to the problems and obstacles you are not even aware are coming your way!?"
Unbelievably, but that attitude made a change. I wasn't anymore asking or even begging for the job; I was offering the greatest tool (me) for completing it, they could find on the market.
Today, being 50 - I'm thinking and feeling about myself as the 18 years old one with 32 years of experience! 😜
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More about it, you can see under his post.BTW - @claudiop63 created #steemseniors channel on