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.”

Selling Yourself to Management

As I said in my last post, as a recruiter, I am not actually seeing any evidence of a Recession outside of the financial industry. However, many of the strategies that protect you in a bad market also improve your status with in a good market.

• Network to keep your value, your brand, visible at all times with your present management and clients. Networking builds bridges to get things accomplished on an every day basis. You should be networking at 2 or 3 title levels above you as insurance if your boss leaves the company. Network with other departments. Network with people junior to you as they may have very different philosophies towards work.
• Look for opportunities to demonstrate how you made (or can make) the company money, saved the company money or made it more efficient. Praise co-workers frequently and tell their bosses. Increase visibility and momentum for your entire team.
• Improve the quality of your written and oral presentation to be a more effective advocate of your ideas. Dress and act more professionally.
• Volunteer to be on committees or projects where you can showcase your thought leadership across the company. Mentor co-workers, help your boss on his/her pet project.
• If you are telecommuter make extra effort to remind teammates you are mission-critical. Be in the office often to build the interpersonal bonds.
• Create opportunities to solicit written feedback on your performance. Send status reports. Ask for signoff on future project methodology. On projects just completed ask your boss if he/she would add anything the next time. The paper trail can be used at review time to remind your boss of the great work you did and, not incidentally, that he/she signed off on your methodology. If you ever lose your job in a large RIF, you have a collection of emails at home you may be able to use to get a job in another department or at least use to find another job. You can use the same method with stakeholders in other departments.
• In a slow or negative economy, especially at a public company, bonuses are easier to negotiate than raises (because bonuses affect the stock price less.) Raises are more likely indexed to company performance and merit bonuses are less wide spread amongst employees. This is not the time to demand a raise or you will leave. This not the best time to be the most expensive person at your band/grade level. This is the time to be more flexible with your employer to give him more room to maneuver and keep you if cuts do happen.

Jobs to Target

As a recruiter, I am not actually seeing any evidence of a Recession although that may change. I am seeing a mixed market, but that has been true since 9/11/01. The most obvious exception is the Financial companies which have been disproportionately affected by the mortgage market defaults. Whether or not we evolve in to a Recession, many of the strategies that protect you in a bad market also will help you get ahead and be more promotable than your co-workers in any market.

These are the more secure roles and companies to target if possible:

• The companies and product groups which cannot afford NOT to innovate continuously or they risk falling behind their competitors. Examples are medical device companies in highly competitive sectors (e.g.,pacemaker companies) or companies with computerized technology or internet services (.com) offerings.
• The Products and Projects which are more visible in a company and are the largest revenue generators, flagship products (most well-known brand names), and new Products which will improve the company’s share of market or open a major new source of revenue as assuming the project has adequate funds available for investment.
• Avoid projects which are nice-to-have but not mission critical. For instance, upgrading software for the back office accounting department is probably not critical unless there are new guidelines like Sarbannes Oxley. Upgrading Customer Service is probably not mission-critical to a company in tough times unless they have had a massive customer problem with product safety or efficacy.
• Seek roles that are in revenue generating departments such as Product Manager. If you are a Marketing Communications professional, focus on service companies versus industrial companies. Marcomm is more critical to a service company. In an industrial environment where there are not elaborate solutions offerings, Marcomm is a cost or support department.
• Seek roles visible to the outside world such as the Manager of Investor Relations, or FDA compliance. This would not be a good time to seek Employee Relations or Team Building roles which are far more likely to be considered a luxury in a business downturn. On the other hand, if Employee Relations is your #1 fantasy, seek the companies where it is more important. A retailer, for instance, has lots of employee turnover, high absenteeism and low employee engagement levels. In that environment Employee Relations is relatively more important.
• Industrial companies adding services/solutions offerings. Many industrial companies are seeing margins fall because of cheaper goods likes sensors being made in Asia. To compensate these companies are adding value and revenue by adding services like remote monitoring of equipment so a customer has less risk of down-time for repairs.
• Companies with “brochureware” websites are adding CRM (Customer Relationship Management) layers. For instance, you may receive an email that offers white paper for free if and only if you fill out 10 points of information that enables a salesperson to call you with some prior knowledge of your business needs. There is a huge move to have integrated media layers (promotions, loyalty efforts, etc.) point the customer back to the website and to interact with it as part of the sales process.
• If you are a web programmer, learn SilverLight which will enable TV-like Rich Media ads on the internet starting this fall, compliments of Microsoft. The growth of such ads will be explosive. These ads will be targeted to your personal internet habits just like ad banners are now.