4 Tips for Anyone Concerned About Ageism

Hello followers! Welcome to the latest edition of the Job Guy Newsletter. Each month, I will be sharing statistics, career management guidance, a testimonial or two, and a favorite tip from my blog page. Please do feel free to comment or suggest content that you might like to see or find useful. This is all about the job seekers after all!

Employment by the Numbers

Salary Transparency: Growth Slows, but Momentum Continues

Salary transparency continues to grow, though at a slower pace than in 2023.

Key Points:

• As of September 2024, 57.8% of all US job postings on Indeed contained some salary information, up from 52.2% in September 2023.

• Childcare, Personal Care & Home Health, and Security & Public Safety are among the sectors with the highest shares of pay-transparent postings.

• Salary transparency has grown considerably in states that recently passed laws requiring pay transparency — including New York, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia.

• Salary transparency grew in 95 of the 110 metropolitan areas included in this analysis over the past year.

Salary transparency is increasingly becoming a common feature in job postings, especially as more states pass legislation requiring it. But despite continued growth in salary transparency overall, some sectors and states remain more opaque than others when it comes to disclosing pay information.

Salary transparency continues to climb, but slowly.

This Month’s topic:

Four Tips for Anyone Concerned About Ageism

Ageism exists.

Indeed, there are many legitimate factors that can make older workers less attractive:

·         They are resistant to change

·         They are not current with today’s technology and best practices

·         They are intimidating to manage

·         They will retire soon and therefore be a poor return on investment

·         They lack energy to keep up

And you know what? These biases exist because they do actually apply to many older workers. And you know what else? There is absolutely nothing you can do to change the bias itself.

What you CAN do is avoid doing things to reinforce stereotypes in your documents and personal presentation. Truly savvy older job seekers can even turn those biases into competitive advantages. I have seen hundreds of older workers win out over younger candidates by reducing the likelihood of bias in the application process and taking biases head-on in interviews and networking conversations.

Here are the keys to leveling the playing field:

Focus more on the hidden job market:

Overcoming ageism is hardest once a job is posted and competition from younger workers is created. This is because the average job posting today generates 200 to 250 applicants and employers need some quick and easy ways to thin out the applicant pool. This means that candidates with 3 years’ or 30 years’ experience are easy outs for a job that asks for 7 to 10. Even if you make it through to this stage, you will likely be conspicuous in a pool or 40-year-olds.

The hidden job market is nothing more than getting in front of a hiring manager before the competition is created. This is done by learning to target the problem or opportunity that will lead to a job rather than waiting for the job to be defined and published. Getting your foot in the door at this stage increases the likelihood that the hiring manager has not yet profiled what the ideal candidate’s background would be. Most workers succeed at this stage for this reason.

For more information from Job Guy on the hidden job market, click here.

Minimize references to age in resumes

Older workers are often told they are overqualified. But many of those older workers have overqualified themselves by how they present on paper! These are the most common ways:

·         Highlighting 35 years’ experience in the very first sentence in the summary. 35 is never going to be the desired number for any job. It makes no sense to emphasize how much older you are than the rest of the applicant pool

·         Including graduation dates or employment dates over 15 years ago. Employers nowadays don’t care what you did in the 90s because no one today does anything the way it was done back then. 15 years of lookback is expected by most employers (some only want 10). If you are someone who launched their career at a killer company that still exists, then use a previous experience section to share the job without dates.

·         Including content that is out of scale with the target job. Many older workers want to stay in the game but would be quite happy taking on less responsibility. Those candidates should avoid using numbers or other content that are not benchmarked to the target job level. You can’t blame a screener who is still in career building mode questioning why someone who supervised 800 people would be happy overseeing 16.

For more on older workers and benchmarking resumes, see additional Job Guy content here.

Build and maintain a current LinkedIn profile

A well-constructed LinkedIn profile is no longer an option; neither is having a headshot on that profile. Failure to do this will create suspicion that you have either not kept up with the times or that you are hiding from the cops for some reason.

Yes, I know that your picture may betray the fact that you aren’t 42 anymore. While I admit that this doesn’t create a competitive advantage, it still outweighs not having a picture at all or using one where you are holding a prized fishing catch from 28 years ago.

Understand that employers are more and more using LinkedIn profiles in lieu of resumes. So content is massively important as well. The most important things for LinkedIn are:

·         Include a headshot that a future employer would be comfortable using when they announced your hiring in the company newsletter.

·         Use resume content to build your work experience section. LinkedIn allows us to claim specific skills used in each job from their skills database. You want to max this out. Do NOT use the “open for work” banner which screams of desperation.

·         Engage! Be consistent connecting to relevant contacts and interacting with your network.

My position on lookback here is different than it is with resumes. While I don’t want to go back 40 years for no reason, I am less afraid of including jobs that are over 15 years old here than I am with resumes. The reason is because employers tend to have a different mindset when looking at candidates on LinkedIn vs. resumes.

Employers most often look at resumes when they are submitted along with hundreds of competitors for a posted position. At this stage it is likely that their electronic and human systems are set up to eliminate outliers to make the candidate pool more manageable. The focus here is on what doesn’t fit vs. what does.

When that same employer goes to LinkedIn, they are typically looking for things that do fit vs. the things that don’t. They are also not overwhelmed by candidates when they are proactively generating the flow on their own. So be less afraid of going farther back on LinkedIn provided that the content is relevant and the connections or endorsements earned in those jobs are still valuable.

LinkedIn is also a great tool to safeguard against long and painful job searches. For more on this, click here.

Demonstrate energy, endurance, and adaptability in interviews

Older job seekers need to take ownership for removing biases by how they handle interviews. Older people are feared to have no energy. So, bring energy! Senior workers are thought to be set in their ways…so be curious by asking questions! It is also very important to be honest with yourself if you anticipate that an employer may suspect a mismatch. The most common examples are:

·         If you have managed 1000 people and are targeting a job that requires managing 15, make sure to focus on why the scale of this new opportunity is such a perfect fit. Don’t wait to be asked!

·         If you are 65 and still want to work for several more years, make sure to say that. Interviewers are likely to think that you will cut out as soon as your social security maxes out. Don’t let them keep that bias!

·         If you made $450,000 in your last job but are fine working for $72,500, make sure to let them know that you understand the pay range and are not going to rent their job until the right one comes along.

·         If you interview with a younger manager (very likely for us older folks) it is important to anticipate that they may be a bit intimidated. Make sure to share how open you are to taking direction and how you are eager to learn new ways to do the work. This is best done by sharing examples of when you have done that rather than just claiming that you can.

For more Job Guy interviewing tips, click here.

Job Guy’s Search Tip of the Month

Older workers offer a tremendous competitive advantage. But few job seekers understand how to most effectively present their considerable experience. Ironically, most employers see the value that older workers bring. But those same organizations often set up hiring processes that eliminate candidates with the soft skills that they so desperately need.

It is therefore a good technique to weave how you have used soft skills like teambuilding, cross functional interaction, and strategy development to achieve the types of results that they next employer values. For more info on the value of soft skills, check out my most recent blog post.

A Favorite LinkedIn Testimonial

Philip was seeing his creative role slowly morphing into project management. Coupling this with reporting to a micromanager made him feel trapped with no sense of direction. His employer valued deliverables from him that no longer emphasized the parts of the job that were most gratifying and where he was most competent.

“John changed the way that I perceive myself and my contributions to employers. Through working with him, I went through a process of seeing what was arbitrary perception and what my actual accomplishments were in my previous careers. This was not an exercise of him twisting and "shoe-horning" my skills and experience into a position that wasn't a good fit. Instead it was a practical, step by step process that led me to come to conclusions of what my strengths were, what was a good fit and what would not be a good fit. Because of him, I've found a "right fit" job that utilizes all my strengths and none of my weaknesses. I am continuously grateful for his help and boost. It was a great value and a genuinely beneficial experience."