Age discrimination is daft – in knowledge-based industries it is madness.

Consider this: the average age of an Australian nurse is 45, 20 percent of registered nurses in Australia are over 55. Although nursing is physically demanding, it is also intellectual. And it’s highly responsible. Few workers in the IT business or PR industry have to deal with life and death issues every day.

To handle this work, a nurse needs brains and fitness. So how come nurses are able to do this well into their late 50s and yet people in the same age range can’t be trusted with moving noughts and ones around the inside of a computer or sending press releases to journalists?

Sure, human brains slow down as we age, but they also amass experience and wisdom. Older workers have a lot to offer. Maybe they can’t work through the night as often as youngsters or go on as many macho programming ‘death marches’. On the other hand, older workers are often more reliable and stable.

Perhaps the silliest aspect of age discrimination is while the skills shortage may not be pressing now, it hasn’t gone away. Many knowledge based industries are finding it hard to recruit enough youngsters, as older people drift away many won’t be capable of making a return if industry wakes up and decides it needs them any way.

Before you dismiss this as nonsense think back a decade or so. Can you remember how many older computer programmers were rapidly pressed into service during the y2k scare? The telling feature of that experience was that many of the people who could have returned to clear up the y2k bugs refused to do so. Some were bitter about being dumped long before their expected retirement age, others had found life was so good without Cobol coding that nothing, not even pots of cash, could tempt them back.

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On Wednesday Paul Smith wrote Job seekers are frozen out of market for the Information page in The Australian Financial Review.

Smith says almost half of Australian organisations have imposed a freeze on hiring information technology workers. He also said more than a quarter of IT employers have laid off staff this year.

The story is based on research by Hudson, a specialist recruitment agency which says the financial and professional service sectors have been hardest hit and the situation is most difficult in Western Australian.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

According to This story posted on The Sydney Morning Herald’s web site retirement is now antiquated. Older people are choosing to stay employed past the age where previous generations would have hung up their working clothes.

Older workers have long been commonplace in hardware stores, garden centres and similar retail establishments. In my personal experience grey-haired gentlemen are the best people to consult when you need help choosing the right tool for a particular handyman task – and they can often advise on how to problem solve handyman issues too. No doubt older women are just as useful in their areas of expertise.

Which is an important point. Most old-timers have a huge store of knowledge locked away in their heads and are only too willing to pass it on but often don’t have the opportunity.

While the Sydney Morning Herald story has a nice balance of the good and bad aspects of having older people in the workforce it overlooks one significant aspect of the trend: many older people need to put off retirement for financial reasons. Falling interest rates and stock market carnage mean those carefully nurtured nest-eggs are suddenly much smaller than a year or so ago and hence older people need work to make ends meet.

Even at the best of times older knowledge workers can struggle to find a decent job. Employers view younger workers as cheaper and, with something still to prove, think they more likely to work hard.

Then there’s the currently fashionable ‘digital natives’ concept. It says the people who grew up with the Internet make better use of technology than the generation who designed it.

All of these ideas can and should be challenged. We’ll leave that for another time. In the meantime here are some practical steps older knowledge workers can take to get a new job:

Show where you add value

As a rule of thumb, older workers are paid more than youngsters because they have more experience and skills. Bosses may suspect those youngsters have more of the right kind of skills. Your mission is to show otherwise. Make sure your CV or resume lists up-to-date skills and shows at least a comprehension of modern technologies.

For example, if you’re a programmer ditch all the references to Cobol in favour of something more current. Demonstrate your practical understanding of Web 2.0 and social media. If you haven’t done so already create a Linkedin profile and point to it from your CV. By all means print copies of your CV if that’s what recruiters ask for, but have electronic versions and embed links to your Linkedin profile and other relevant sites.

It’s too late to start a blog if you’re looking for a job write now, but getting one up and running today might help in six months time. Make sure it’s about something useful and doesn’t read like the rantings of a grumpy old man or woman.

Crank up your personal network
Face it. We’re not all born sales critters. If walking into a function and handing out scores of business cards makes you feel like an Amway tout, then don’t do it. People will smell the desperation and unease.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t shake the contact tree. Over the years you will have worked with hundreds of other people who will know your strengths and talents. Some of these will have made through to the higher echelon. Others will be involved in hiring or can refer your name to people who are hiring. If it helps, don’t view it as networking, think of it as renewing old friendships. Get in touch, find out if they know of openings for your proven skills.

Use professional recruiters
You should at least let the professional recruiters know you are on the market. Many of them are particularly good at finding work for more experienced and highly skilled individuals. They can do a good job of selling you to employers and provide useful tips once you have an interview set up.

Some employers want grey hair
I was still in my 30s and dark haired at the peak of the dotcom boom when I picked up a consulting job. At the time the person hiring me said “we need some grey hairs on board”. His rationale was that having some mature people who understood his business would play well with customers and investors. This is still often the case – there are employers who want mature workers.

Prepare for a long haul
Sorry, there’s no sugar coating this pill. It takes older workers longer to find new jobs than younger workers. So be prepared for the long haul. And remember, it just takes longer that’s not the same as saying it doesn’t happen.

Get started straight away
Following on from the previous point, it will take older workers longer to find a new job so don’t hang around. Get organised the moment you hear talk of redundancies or lay-offs. Do not spend weeks having a well-earned rest, you may have an opportunity to do this before starting in your new role.

Target employers where the management is older
My teenage daughters think people in their late twenties are ‘old’. People in their 20s and 30s think people in their late 40s are old. Younger managers are far less likely to hire people they consider to be old. Older managers will understand your worth and will consider your age to be a good cultural fit.

See also:
Grey-haired knowledge workers get the short straw

Job-finding tips for older knowledge workers