Cruel, unpleasant, short-sighted, wasteful and stupid are just some of the words describing the attitude of many employers towards hiring older knowledge workers.

I’ve used the word ‘older’ in the opening sentence, but in reality, the age threshold we’re talking about here is barely middle aged. Put it this way, if you’ve been around long enough to remember where the headline on this story originally came from then you’d better watch out because by many recruiters’ standards you are already over the hill.

Over the years I’ve spoken to or been in email communications with workers, employers and recruiters who believe that anyone over the age of 40 is going to find the going hard when looking for a job in most knowledge-based industries.

This gives the lie to all that fancy talk we hear about the value of experience. At the point in their life when a knowledge worker has just about built up enough personal experience to know what they are doing, they drop off the employers’ wish list.

While the much talked about skills shortage of recent years is no longer regarded as a pressing issue, you have to ask yourself what was going on when employers bemoaned the lack of trained workers and at the same time refused to consider anyone with grey hair.

Some older workers complain they didn’t get interviews or replies to their enquiries about vacancies even at the height of the skills shortage. At the same time I heard from freshly minted graduates who couldn’t through the door. That sets the age limits for desirable recruits at roughly between 25 and 40 – a rather small percentage of most people’s productive working lives.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The madness that is age discrimination (billbennettnz.wordpress.com)