How has age bias in the workplace affected you? I’m hearing from a lot of people about this.
According to Ellen Alcorn, Monster Contributing writer, “It’s the fastest-growing category of complaints received by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). In fiscal year 2008, the EEOC received 24,582 age-discrimination claims.”
“We have a youth culture in this country, where younger is better than older,” says Tom Osborne, senior attorney with the AARP Foundation in Washington, DC. It doesn’t matter how good you are at your job or how much experience you’ve acquired over the years. If you’re rounding the corner toward 50, you’d be smart to start looking for signs of age bias.”
OK, so this is a radical reality of our times, but there are many things people can do to manage and impact this. Fight it and fight back!
“Perception is reality” right? If you act and appear old and passe, that’s how you will be treated. If you act and appear current, relevant and fresh, that’s how you will be treated.
It’s not so much about age. It’s more about attitude, persona, language, and culture and how you stay in tune with and on top of today’s world.
When you use the platforms, play in the playgrounds and speak the current language no one cares how old you are.
There are 4 areas you can cultivate your relevance, where people focus more on you and what you bring rather than how old you are.
1. Your Persona
Seriously look at your personal and professional image. Invest in a style update and makeover, with regard to your hair, grooming and clothes. Get some professional current pictures taken that flatter you. Take the 20 plus year dates off your resume and marketing materials. Quit talking about what you did 30 years ago! Create a ‘younger image’ by looking, acting and speaking more current. Bring your essence out in a fresher way. Build your communication skills and a bold persona. Join Toastmasters, volunteer to speak, teach a workshop, take an acting class.
2. Your Skills
Make sure you do a serious evaluation of your personal, professional, technology and social skills! Invest in some classes from your local adult education programs, or chambers and professional organizations. Check out the Women’s Business Center or Small Business Development Centers in your county. Get up to date on how people communicate, where they are gathering on and offline.
3. Your Process
People watch and observe how we do things. In the past 3 years, I have built out my business, social platforms and my media activities. A friend of mine recently e-mailed me and said, “I’m watching you do good work. Keep it up.” That really made me feel good. People watch us triumph and handle our challenges. How we operate says a lot about us. How do you operate? Are you in the game or on the sidelines?
4. Your Platforms
It’s NOT negotiable anymore to say I’m not using any social platform if you’re networking online, job or career searching. You must have a LinkedIn profile and start using your Facebook account more! The benefits of using the social platforms are far reaching. Ask a friend or your children to sit down and help you. Make the time. It’s an investment. You do realize people are checking you out by “Googling” you right? If you are not linking yourself to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube you are not going to be considered a player. You don’t have to be on everything but you do need to be on one or two.
So, how does your persona, skills, process and platforms impact your image?
They all work together to put you out there, make you available and accessible and give you a much broader reach to make the important connections that just may lead to your next big job, sale, break or lead!
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About Deborah Shane
I applied for various part-time weekend positions at Lowe’s in the Sacramento area. I am over 55 years old but I have experience in retail, sales and customer service. I went on four interviews and didn’t get offered anything. I really feel I was discriminated because of my age.
This is great, but what about ageism towards YOUNGER people? I’m the youngest in my office, and it’s sort of hard to feel autonomous and empowered in my job.
If you’re physically active, consider using a photo that shows you hiking, on your bike, in a ski hat, etc. It’s more important to overcome age bias than it is to use a “professional” photo.
Age bias is definitely alive and well. I recently responded to a job posting with a Fortune 100 company for an HR OD Mgr. position (I have been an HROD Director) at a key manufacturing site. There was no question that I had more experience than they were looking for and that I had probably earned more in the past than they were prepared to offer. However, I quickly and professionally put those concerns aside for them and focused on the qualifications that they were seeking and the exact match with my experience. At least I got a phone screen interview, which I thought went very well except that the interviewer wanted to get an exact timeline of my educational background and work history. When all was said and done, I felt like I had presented a very convincing portrayal of why I should be brought in for an interview and serious consideration as someone who could join the organization and add value right out of the starting block. Well, I received a “we’ll call you if anything develops” email a few days later. What other conclusion should I draw?
Thanks for your comment. Keep working on your relevance. Skills, language, persona. Qualifications are NOT enough. Attitude and energy are very key. Act current and people will focus on that.
To be honest, and as much as my stance may disadvantage some of the “older” people who are affected by this issue, I have to say – get over it. I can’t tell you how many positions I was rejected from for no other reason than my age, but, at that time, it was because I was too young. And, dare I say, people who may now be seeing their opportunities limited for being “too old” may well have made the same judgements on other applicants at some stage in their careers. I had to make my way, looking for more roles, applying to entry-level positions, earning my stripes and working my way up the ladders, if you expect to be able to skip those steps as an older applicant, good luck to you.
I work with older people through a volunteer service, and I have to say, the difference in the speed with which a younger person will grasp a new idea, concept or skill, compared to the older members is notable, so I can imagine that an employer would consider mental agility as being a major benefit to any role, and, as such, a point in favour of younger applicants.
Thanks for your comment June. Bias certainly does affect both sides, older and younger. I agree that the speed of grasping for older workers can be an issue. I will say though that younger people have the similar lack of speed issue sometimes when it comes to appropriate dress, being on time and some interpersonal skills. A text is not a conversation and isn’t networking offline or in person!
I do not think that the points you raise regarding “…appropriate dress, being on time and some interpersonal skills.” are necessarily accurate, or indicative of any notable portion of the younger workforce population. Most people, regardless of age, can understand a dress/uniform code within a workplace (in alot of instances, younger people, having either been involved in an educational facility or possibly a workplace which enforces a uniform code would adapt to this quite quickly). Being on time can be an issue, for anyone, regardless of age – the older employees just have a better range of excuses “I couldn’t get my child to bed until 2am”, “my car broke down” compared to the younger employees “I went out drinking last night”, “I hit the snooze button seven times”. That being said, I have never noted any major trends in people being notably tardy, related to their age (maybe to their commitment to the role, but not their age). And I also have to say that whilst younger people may not be as experienced in handling conflict within the workplace, if anything, it is the older employees who are notorious for forming underground power-structures whereby they backstab, gripe, undermine and manipulate their workmates and managers. Young people may not like a colleague, but, more often than not, they are upfront about it, in my experience, older colleagues are more likely to hold grudges and be underhanded in handling workplace conflicts