I'm beginning to believe Age Discrimination is Alive and Well...
I've been unemployed for one year now due to relocation of my wife's job. Prior to resigning from my previous job, we lived apart for one year while held employment and job searched the new area for employment. I'm a firm believer that a currently employed applicant is more marketable. After one year of separation and maybe seeing my wife every other month, my wife said enough... Time to move here. Thankfully we can afford to live on her salary but we shouldn't have to. I have three degrees, 27 years of Operations, Research and Development and Project Management experience. Now after two years of applying to multitude of job posting posted on Linkedin and other job boards that I qualify for within a 75 mile radius, I have yet to receive an interview let alone a phone interview. I've even reached out to Contract Employment Firms with no luck. The most correspondence I receive on a weekly basis is "At this time we have decided to move forward with other applicants for this position.", then within 24 hours I see the same job posted again on Linkedin and other job boards. If I'm a betting man... Age Discrimination is playing a huge factor in my employment search.
I know age discrimination is alive! I too am experiencing it. I was actually asked "when do you plan on retiring " in an interview!
I searched and checked out your LinkedIn profile. You might want to reach out to people and get recommendations. Getting people to write a recommendation of you might help you.
You need to alter the years of job experience on your resume. Say that you graduated high school and college in the 2000's. This will land you an interview. Now, when asked in person, tell them that you decided to invest in your education later on in life. I know this sounds awful, but at least you will land an opportunity to sell yourself : )
I have heard many well educated, experienced job seekers in Denver over 50 mentioning the same related to age. I would imagine the younger generation are threatened by the experienced and are protecting their jobs.
I'm wondering if I'm experiencing it too. I really get suspicious when online applications force the entry of when I graduated from high school with a required field. Does it really matter when I've got a resume that demonstrates many years of working experience?
Hi Timothy: I hear you - it's definitely something that a lot of Jobcasers have posted about before, so age discrimination is a huge problem. There's a great convo on Jobcase right now that might be able to help you out: https://www.jobcase.com/conversations/6864c67b-a8e7-5c40-8bf9-52b416d9c8fe Let me know what you think of it!
Though discrimination based on age is illegal, it most certainly occurs on a regular basis. Employers skirt around it by simply saying you're overqualified. Someone said to fudge your resume, but that is equally wrong and I wouldn't recommend doing that. You'd think that employers would welcome the wisdom and experience of a mature worker, but they are mostly concerned about the costs of hiring such a person, namely higher salary and benefits expenses. Many figure they will just get the use of a younger, less expensive employee for a few years before they move on and the process starts over.