Age is but a number. Not!

The internet is full of helpful articles on how to combat ageism during the job search. Rejig your resume, the experts say. Remove all references to your age. Focus on your skills instead and how you can provide value to the company.

Fair enough. I decided to follow their advice. After all, an expert is an expert, right? So I rewrote my resume focusing on my skills and removed all references to my age. Not that I’m Jurassic by any stretch. But I merely wanted to give it my best shot so I played along.

Unfortunately what the internet won’t tell you is that the rot lies deep. No matter what companies will mouth at conferences or releases, ageism is an unpleasant reality at most workplaces. For women at least.
At a recent interview with a young, international EdTech startup, the interviewer – a bright young thing - gushed about my resume and said the talent team were very impressed with my credentials. That made my eyes sparkle. More so, since I’d just caught Covid and determined not to let the virus slow me down in any way, I had logged in bright and early for the online interview. I had decided to ignore my raging fever and nagging headache and go for it. And the initial validation from her made me feel that perhaps it would be worth it.

But in the next couple of minutes, the interview went rapidly downhill. The woman kept trying to find out when I had worked at X company or at Y agency. I don’t see any dates here, she said squinting at her laptop where presumably my resume was displayed. Can you give me an idea of the time period?

I realized at once what she was getting at and I told her the dates without dilly dallying. As soon as she heard that I had worked at X company in the late nineties, her eyebrows all but disappeared into her hair. She ended the interview rather abruptly after that promising to get back soon.

She got back the next day saying I hadn’t made the cut. But I already knew that. Working in the nineties had already disqualified me. The next couple of interviews would be uncannily similar. The same open-mouthed surprise. “Oh, we were expecting someone much younger” or “You are far too senior for this role.”

I am wondering whether I should put an end to the job hunt. If this is the way it is going to be, I’d rather not be discriminated against. But I’m not going to stop talking about it. And if necessary, call out companies for their ageist attitudes.

What do you think? Have you faced something similar? 

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The original post appeared on LinkedIn. Read it here.