Job seeking when you're over 50
Interesting blog here on HBR about job seeking for older workers.
Recently I asked a few laid-off high tech engineers to talk about their job search experience. Most of them were over 50, and the anger and frustration just rolled out of them: "They say I am overqualified for any opening they have, but what does a twenty-five year old junior Human Resources person know about technology?" "I never get called back once I come in for an interview and they see how old I am." "They don't give me credit for being able to learn new technology even though I've been doing it for 30 years." They all agreed. It was age discrimination that was keeping them from finding a job.
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/11/job-seeking_when_youre_over_50.html
How do you approach job seeking when you pass 50?
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I can well imagine that older applicants still get discriminated against in fast-developing industries. In particular, I can imagine it's an issue in the computing industries because the most visible workers in this field made their major impact in their 20s (i.e. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg) and many technical skills become obselete pretty quickly... so long-term experience doesn't have the same value that it has in most other lines of work and companies are probably being lazy and assuming that older candidates will be slower to learn the new technologies which are coming along every day (which admittedly would be true across a population average, but not on a case-by-case basis).
From another perspective, it could also be seen as older candidates not benefitting from experience-related discrimination - i.e. assuming that because a younger candidate doesn't have much experience in a field they won't be able to perform to a high standard straight away.
Great post Matt. Priscilla makes some really good suggestions in her article. I would add maybe proactively dealing with potential "discrimination" head on e.g at an interview, or within a covering letter of application - "you may be thinking that I am overqualified, let me tell you why I am particularly interested in this position and what I feel I can offer......" More and more, successful appointments are as much about the candidate fitting the culture of an organisation as qualifications/experience. Demonstrating through image and continuing professional development that a candidate is "up to date" with the relevant industry etc., will surely help.