'Image' before skills and experience (Ageism and Employment)

Member Name: Leolover

Product:	Ageism and Employment
Date:	08/02/02 (187 review reads)
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Recently, I was ‘headhunted’ by an agency on behalf of a prestigious company in the city. I am not really seeking to leave my current job, but I saw no harm in checking out alternatives, so I sent through my CV and specified a figure I would consider leaving my current job for, which worked out at quite a bit higher than my current salary.

I didn’t really expect to hear back from the agency, as I was fairly sure that I had overestimated my value in the marketplace, so I was surprised to hear back from them a couple of days after I had sent through my CV, informing me that the company was very interested, more than happy with the figure I had quoted and wanted to see me for an interview!

I have since found out that two other people from my office have applied for the same position. One of them is thirty years old, and asking for a very similar figure to the one I specified. He made it as far as the interview stage and got no further. The other is the most highly skilled member of our team with tons of experience – he is in fact the colleague I turn to when I am having difficulties with my work, and he always has a solution to the problem. Despite asking for a figure that’s only minimally more than I requested, he didn’t even get an interview.

I’ve thought about this a lot, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s an example of ageism in the workplace. I have eighteen months experience in my current role and although I’m doing very well for someone with that amount of experience, I cannot be compared to my colleague, who has thirty years experience in the same area. But I have an interview, and he doesn’t. I’m twenty five, and he’s fifty one. What other conclusion can I draw?

This has led me on to thinking about why a company would put age before experience and skillset, when surely they would want the best person for the job? I can only conclude tha
t they’re thinking about the company’s image before anything else – they want to present an image of a high flying, go getting, energetic organisation, and a fifty one year old employee doesn’t fit into this ideal. Yet my colleague, as well as being highly intelligent, skilled and professional, is also a real party animal with a great sense of humour who would, I believe, fit into any team with ease.

Perhaps younger managers feel threatened by older staff members, believing they will try to change the way things are done, or challenge them with their advanced knowledge and experience. But this is nonsense – a manager should respect the opinions of all his or her staff, and a younger member of staff is just as likely to introduce confrontation and conflict as an older member.

The idea that younger members of staff will give more to a company because they will be there for longer and have more of an incentive to work harder to promote themselves is not valid when applied to the IT industry, which I am a part of. In this industry, young people are more likely to learn as much as they can as quickly as possible and then up and leave for more money, and they rarely stay in their jobs for longer than a year or two at most. Older workers are in fact more likely to stay put as security and comfort is more important to them.

I have had my interview, it went very well, and I’m hoping to be called back for the second stage soon. I can’t let my moral values, and my feeling that ageism is at work here, affect my own career progression, and if I am offered the job, I’ll probably take it. But it’s certainly given me something to think about, and I do believe that employers who put age before skills and experience in this way are ultimately shooting themselves in the foot. When taking on staff, employers should try to choose the person who is best qualified for the job, not the person who will &#
8216;fit in’ to the company’s image the best.

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