Managing Age Discrimination When Seeking Employment

By Richard Shank

Research has shown that both older and younger workers face stereotypes when in the job market and in the workplace. For older workers, they face the perception of being less flexible, harder to train, and unskilled in new technologies. A study examined how older job applicants managed the impressions hiring managers had of them and their techniques to combat potential age discrimination.

The methods used in this study were qualitative. Those interviewed included 30 individuals ages 45 to 65 who had become unemployed for a variety of reasons: corporate downsizing, layoffs, a desire to leave a previous employer, etc. Researchers also conducted participant observations at an older workers program located in Toronto.

Participants felt that prospective employers utilized various methods of discrimination, all of which were believed to reflect negative stereotypes related to their skills, training, adaptability or flexibility, and financial costs. They felt that their resumes were used against them, as employers used the year they received their degrees to use as proxy for age.

In response to these feelings of discrimination, older job seekers used a variety of age-related identity management techniques in an attempt to counteract negative stereotypes. For instance, keeping training current was viewed not so much as necessary for gaining job skills, but instead for managing the impressions of hiring managers who may assume they can’t be trained.

In all, the feelings of being stereotyped caused many job seekers to redefine their professional expectations and even their ambitions for the type of work they should be doing.

The fact that the American workforce is aging is widely recognized and has been met by attempts to encourage longer work lives and a more phased approach to retirement. The difficulty this creates is that when it comes to layoffs, older adults face potentially longer times on unemployment and more hurdles when jumping back into the job market. More needs to be done to ensure that they’re prepared to navigate the troubled U.S. job market.

Source: Berger, E. 2009. Managing age discrimination: An examination of the techniques used when seeking employment. The Gerontologist 49(3): 317-332.

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