I am in my 50s. Yes, age bias exists and, yes, it is illegal. You won’t always be able to avoid it. But age bias is sometimes not really about your actual age, it is about certain soft skills and attitudes that employers desire but older employees are less likely to value. And if you learn to address those issues, you can make concerns about age go away.

Attitude

First of all, if you think the world is against you, I will bet it shows in your interviews. You need to peel back the layers on your emotions. Do you think society has fouled up again? That young managers don’t know what they are doing? Or is it that you don’t know how/where to sell yourself at this stage of your career and are afraid?

Your focus should be to find the companies for which you are a highly desirable applicant just as you are and to present yourself to those companies in a manner that makes you one of the first applicants to be selected for an interview. While this may require a stronger sell than was necessary a few years ago, it is not at all impossible. It just requires some additional strategic layers and may indicate a different kind of company than the one you left. For instance, a smaller company or start-up may prefer a more experienced candidate to obtain a greater depth of industry knowledge with a smaller staff count. Or target your skills in business development (well-documented with case histories) to a company who has been struggling with the issue for some time.

If you are significantly overqualified for a job description as written, don’t spend a lot of time applying for it. The company will be concerned that you will leave as soon as you find a job for which you are better suited. You could offer to sign a contract promising that you will stay at least 2 years, but they will still be concerned that you will become crabby in the role because you are being under-utilized and that you will be disruptive to the balance of the team structure.

Trends in age of employees

• 2000-2003
  • The number of workers under the age of 45 was constant.
  • The number of workers over 45 increased 86%.
• 2005
  • 45% of workers are over the age of 45.
• 2010 projected
  • Labor shortage due as baby boomers retire
  • Most boomers plan to work full-time or part-time after retiring.

How older workers are perceived

• More expensive than younger employees doing the same work (usually true).
• Difficult to supervise, they think they know more than team mates. Poor or selective follow-up.
• Inflexible, grumpy, frumpy, more likely to argue. Poor communication skills. Less political.
• Hard to train, don’t know new technology.
• Disconnected from company vision and younger team-mates. Prefer to be sole contributors.
• Get sick more often (false).
• Low and declining energy. Resist overtime.

Market demand for new hires

• As the pace of corporate innovation increases, the duration of the average permanent job decreases because company priorities change more rapidly, and your seniority or longevity may be irrelevant. The career track you were on for the last ___ years doesn’t matter. The employer wants to know if you can hit the ground running for today’s needs.
• 2 out of 100 resumes result in a job offer.
• A resume needs to be better written to be effective because employers have access to more resumes through websites and job databases. Is your resume well-written enough that you will be one of the interviewees chosen from 20 resumes? 100?

Strategies to try

So what am I saying? Learn and emphasize what a company values in today’s market. Make sure you know how to sell yourself. Focus on the benefits of your depth of knowledge, but make sure you also counter the expected negative attitudes associated with older workers. Note the ways attitude as well as knowledge is being addressed in the bullets below:

• “I really enjoy being on teams which solve problems and grow business.” Don’t just say “I have lots of experience” which would emphasize the gap in age but not the quality of experience and your willingness to be a team member.
• “I have the contacts to drive growth.”
• “I thrive in fast-paced environments.”
• To an insurance or medical company with older customers: “I may understand your customer better than a younger applicant.”
• “Yes, I supervised many people. Learned how to work with lots of different kinds of people. Can we take a tour of the company? I would like to see how you do it.“
• “I can start as a part-time consultant to let you evaluate what I offer at a small cost.”
• “I just attended a conference on that new technology and was a panelist.”

If you dread the thought of networking, you are not alone. Most of us can describe networking that is not effective:

Good networking is not a three martini lunch.

Good networking is not standing up in a crowd of strangers and announcing you are a sales manager looking for a contact at company X.

Networking should have two elements:

First, networking should be a long-term campaign to establish your value in the business community. It is about defining and establishing your brand – what makes you unique or different amongst people with somewhat similar backgrounds. It is about building awareness for your brand with an ever-larger audience. It is about keeping your value proposition top of mind over the long-term so that when someone in the community has need of your services, he/she remembers you are out there and reaches out to you. Your objective is to craft your message so that the right listener hears it and is appropriately impressed by it. If you do this well, someone will be eager to reach out to you when there is a problem for which you are the best solution.

The second element of networking is to provide the impetus to get someone to take action on your behalf such as calling someone up about you, or giving you an informational interview. That is easy if the listener understands your value and helping you makes him a hero with his boss. If you are not at that stage of the relationship yet, you can encourage support through quid pro quo. That means you offer to help the other person multiple times until the recipient of your largesse wants to do a favor for you in return. (This is called the Theory of Reciprocity.) In fact we know that the most effective offers of help are (in rank order):

1. Making your listener money or smarter (most effective)
2. Saving him/her money
3. Making him/her more efficient
4. Doing a favor for someone like a family member

My favorite networking activities:

• Discussing ideas of interest to both parties: Reach out to someone who is knowledgeable in your field and tell him/her you are writing a white paper or doing a study on best practices to do ______. An example would be spend time with someone whom is also interested in companies which have grown their businesses by making “green” products, things good for the environment. Tell him/her you will be interviewing a number of people on the subject. If he can give you 30 minutes over a cup of coffee, when you are finished talking to others with the same expertise, you will share back a summary of the conversations. A good professional will be very interested in learning something that makes him smarter or makes him money. Be careful not to share proprietary information or the process may backfire.
• Collect articles from the trade press, internet, and books that show you are up on the cutting-edge issues in your industry. Consider these “currency” with which you can open doors and influence people. Send an article every other month or so to your networking contacts by email. Even if they have already read the article, it establishes that you are knowledgeable and someone to stay in touch with.
• Call someone up on the phone to ask if he/she has heard that Company A bought Company B. You want to vary the methods which you reach out to people to keep it fresh and authentic. A phone call or in-person conversation builds the relationship most effectively. It helps you discover common interests like sports or children. Be careful to stay out of opinionated conversations about politics or religion which may become awkward. You want to build bridges with the listener, not put up barriers.
• Another valuable resource for networking is professional associations. One way to make connections in such an organization is to volunteer (no one will ever turn you down, and you may have the opportunity to create work products and try new directions that will enhance your resume and portfolio). Working side-by-side with people in your industry also helps establish your credibility and credentials while you gain valuable information. Offer to give a speech or write a newsletter article.
• Offer to open up your network of contacts to someone else to solve his/her problem. For instance, offer to help someone find the resource he needs in the professional associations you belong to.
• If you are very junior in rank to the person you are targeting, you still can be of value. I know an executive administrative assistant who offered to research the Internet for information for a Mexican vacation spot for a former boss. In exchange, the boss offered to call a CEO at another company on her behalf.

Now that you have done favors

Once you have established your value it is easier to say “By the way, I am looking for companies in need of a sales executive like me. Do you know any companies looking for someone with those skills? Do you know anyone I might call to ask the same question?” If you do not receive useful information back today, you may in the future. Note that you should not ask that person if HE will pass your name on, you are giving him some wiggle room. If you call on a regular basis to “check in” with good information (ideally 3-6 times a year,) you will develop a life-long exchange of information flow with that contact.

Be sure to add all new contacts to your database. Also keep notes of topics you discussed, when you met, and potential future networking possibilities. Some people set a goal of five or ten new contacts per week. Networking is all about numbers and quality of resources. You need to think of all networking opportunities as steps in a journey that will last for the rest of your life. If you do, you will find that those relationships grow and thrive. The contacts will be as useful when you are working as when you are not.