Age discrimination question

[DaveC489387]

I’m 62-years old, and nowadays when I apply for jobs I'm constantly told that I’m “overqualified”, or that I have “too much experience”. Below is a recorded example of what one corporate recruiter told me when I applied for a financial analyst job. It seems someone like me would hurt the “dynamic of the team”, and not “set them up for success”.  I'd like to get your opinion on whether you believe “too much experience” is just code for “too **bleep** old”? Keep in mind that when I ask this, I’m not asking for a legal opinion on age discrimination. I just want to know how you would feel if this same recruiter told you what he told me. Would you want to do business with a company that treated seniors this way? Thanks very much for your feedback.     

Dave

CORPORATE RECRUITER COMMENTS - “I can tell you with my experience, when we’ve had individuals that have more that 15 to 20 years experience applying to analyst roles, they don’t get consideration. It’s just the thought process behind it is that they’re probably looking for someone a little bit more junior and it sets up for an uncomfortable conversation, just like you’re gonna have individuals that are in their twenties managing you, and you may not care about that, and you may not care about entering at that point, but like the dynamic of the team is what managers have shown me, it’s just like it doesn’t set them up for success.”

[mb81508532]

I encountered a "unique" way that a potential employer cheats the system to find out your age.  I was applying online, and one of the questions on the application was "how many years experience" for various categories.

One of those categories, was ... wait for it ... US Citizenship!

How smarmy.

Asking how  many year you have been a citizen, for those of us who are US Citizens, will reveal your age!

I suppose I could have answered a cool "33" because it would not have been a lie_ 

I have been a citizen for 33 years ... and then some!

Anyone else encounter clever ways that hiring firms, recruiters and employers try to get your age?

I have yet to hear back ...

[GailL1]

The ADEA (Age Discrimination in Employment Act) doesn't really say that employers cannot ask your age - it only has to be of some revelance to employment.  The law states that they cannot use your age to discriminate.

The EEOC states that discrimination laws are only applicable (federally enforceable) to employers with over 20 employees.

The age discriminatory limits are also only applicable for those who are age 40 and older.

EEOC - Facts About Age Discrimination 

Concerning the citizenship question - normally it is not asked because there is a process for verification further along in the hiring process than the beginning application.  However, here again, it all depends on the reason they are asking because an employer may require U.S. citizenship for a particular job if it is required by federal, state, or local law, or by government contract.

[PatrickR720159]

It does make us think that maybe half of these companies want to play like that they are American Idol with a stupid upper age limti of 28.  But what we need to do is to not put a boat load of jobs we may have had in our younger days.  For us, maybe we need to bug congress to take the age discrimination rule that was created in 1967 and put some teeth into it.  This having way too many years of talent excuse to me sounds pretty stupid.  If the company you may be applying for does have an upper age limit of 28, then that upper age limit needs to go out with the trash.  At Mercy, all we look for is the talent and that's all.  Mercy doesn't care how many years of experience you may have.  

[GailL1]

---

@DaveC489387 wrote:

I’m 62-years old, and when I apply for jobs I'm constantly told that I have too much experience. 

---

I cannot speak to the recording from the recruiter, which I assume you transcribed for your post here, but YES, companies can set a maximum amount of experience especially for external hires.

A case was decided in January 2019 on this very issue.  I believe the AARP LEGAL FOUNDATION played a part in representing the plaintiff in this case.

The way I understand the age discrimination law, to make this cover external hires, Congress would have to change the law.

CNBC 01/23/2019 - Age Bias Law Does Not Cover Job Applicants - U.S. Appeals Court

The case was Kleber vs CareFusion and it went on for a few years and through several courts and appeals - I believe this is the final verdict since I don't think it is being appealed any further up.

I think we talked about it here last year sometimes but I could not find it readily.

I think many times people think something is age discrimination but what they think and what the law says are sometimes two different things.  The law takes presidence.  Or I guess if people ever got together and made their point to Congress, perhaps the law could be changed.  That takes lots of work.

[retiredtraveler]

Holy crap! This guy responds by letter and is barely literate. Poor sentence structure, improper punctuation and I really like the 'gonna'. 

   I wouldn't want to work for a company that has a recruiter who doesn't know the King's English.

[cd59287815]

For your consideration:

I have over 25 yeas in the HR arena raising throught the ranks for a specialist level to a senior HR executive with C-Suite experience.

To be candid, age discrimination does exist particularly in the age of "millennialism". Part of the issue is the inability to a recruiter to objectively look past their personal biases, the age of a candidate, but rather focus on the ability to perform, quality of experience and skills sets.  This tend to happen because a lot of recruiters are not properly trained in how to conduct a search and interview.  The focus is sometime to much on the job description vs the actual position requirement and nuances.  Recruiter tend to want to please the bosses' desires vs honest and realistic assessment of candidates.

Lastly, very few recruiter understand the concept and value of a "multi-generational" workforce.

Looks carefully at the vision & mission statement of the company, as well as how they have grown.  If you do diligently do some "deep-dive" research on a company (social media, etc) it may help you job search.

Good luck, keep moving forward.

[mb81508532]

How many times have I spoken with a recruiter who sounds like she/he is 12 years old?  And they often know nothing about what the job requires, for example, how many times I have had to explain what SharePoint is to a recruiter!

I believe that the recruitment industry is far removed from the companies they represent.  It used to be that the "personnel" departments (this is before "personnel" was changed to "human resources") were part and parcel of the companies and that the staff knew the employees and managers and had a personal relationship as they were often in the same building

Today I hear from recruiters in California!  And I live on the East coast!

It is part of the splintering of the workplace/workforce.  Too many contractors doing hiring tasks.  This is ridiculous.