Age Discrimination in Hiring Practices: Tackling the Testy, Touchy Topic

When my friend Suzanna went back to work after going back to college to train in a different field, she ran up against an unexpected problem most women over 40 never consider: Age discrimination. After a probationary period as an executive assistant at a medium-sized high tech business during which she gave an exemplary performance, she was inexplicably let go ("Not a good fit," her recruiter told her apologetically).

One thing you have to know about Suzanna: She's one of those women who explain why fortysomething starlets like Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman still commandeer the Big Screen. She runs five miles a day, practices Pilates, and eats a vegetarian diet. She's also genetically predisposed to look much younger than she really is. I swear, the woman doesn't look a day over 30. But she is, in fact, 44 years old, and there is nothing she can do to change that. Another thing you should know about Suzanna: She's a real trier. After following her ex-husband's corporate job, transfer after transfer, at the expense of her own career, she decided after their divorce that she wasn't going to be dead weight to her family. So she went back to college to train in the area of business administration.

None of Suzanna's colleagues knew her age; only the two ladies in Human Resources, both in their forties themselves, were privy to her personal information. "Looking back, I see how I accidentally tipped my hand," Suzanna admitted when we met for coffee. During an innocuous break room conversation with a co-worker, she accidentally mentioned the year she graduated from high school -- 1984. Her co-worker looked at her, astounded, and uttered the words that will resonate in Suzanna's memory for the rest of her employable years: "I didn't know you were that old."

"After that, everything changed," Suzanna said. "Co-workers treated me differently, condescendingly, as though my office was an activity center for seniors. Only a day before, I was treated as though I was a valued member of the team." There were even direct inferences that Suzanna was behind the bell curve when it came to technology. One of her superiors, a woman ten years her junior, took her inside her office to explain how her Blackberry functioned so that Suzanna would be able to send her messages when she was out of the office.

"She explained the features to me as though I were in grade school," Suzanna said. "I waited until she finished before I told her that I'd had a Blackberry for the past three years." I asked her how that went over with the female boss. "Not well," she said wryly. Suzanna has a knack for understatement.

Does age discrimination exist? Coming from someone who has been involved in the hiring process, I can tell you that it does, in spades. Age discrimination begins when resumes start rolling out of the fax machine or landing in the company email account, and it's the first things that the hiring team talk about among themselves, even over qualifications. I could argue that ageism is more dominant than any other bias. Employers estimate the age of a prospective candidate by looking at the date they graduated from college (or high school) and then doing the math. "Way too old," one of my former bosses said dismissively, shoving a stack of rejected vitae aside. Despite having a wealth of experience, she didn't feel that applicants over 40 would fit into the office culture or be able to keep up with the high-paced demands the positions required. A savvy over-40 applicant might know how to get around this problem by not supplying his or her college graduation date, but in cases where an application form is required -- for example, an application to work at a state, county, or city agency -- a candidate's date of birth is there for all doing the hiring to consider.

I did a little cyber-research to see how over-40 job-hunters were coping with age discrimination. Support forums for unemployed workers yielded a variety of humiliating, unnecessary tactics that seasoned workers are employing to improve their chances of landing a job offer, including dying grey hair (even the men), buying "hip" clothing, leaving their best work off their vitae by shaving off more dated work experience, and researching what small talk to employ with a younger hiring manager as to not tip their hand. Like what topics might these be --? American Idol? Last weekend's Cake concert? The new Facebook format?

It's a sad day when unemployed, middle-aged Americans don't feel comfortable readily admitting to a prospective employer how many years they have survived on this planet without surviving a mental break. And seriously, no one -- and I do mean no one -- should feel as though they must camouflage their streaks of silver to curry favor at an interview. The employer who is actively discriminating based on age will most likely figure it out anyway, and then the applicant only appears desperate and lacking in self-esteem. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. But here's the catch: There's no action for discrimination if a job candidate never finds out about it.

Let's get back to that former boss I told you about. With only a handful of exceptions, she hired only fresh-faced college graduates who had never set foot in an office setting before. And ... who came in late because they didn't grasp that sleeping off a hangover is an excuse only reserved for missing one's 8 a.m. economics class. Who called in "sick" during the busiest time so they could go to an out-of-town concert. Who kept boom-boxes in their cubicles that blasted alternative rock. Who spent much of their time checking email accounts, social networking profiles, and cell phones, doing everything but the work they had been hired to do. It wasn't that they lacked the ability to become good workers; it was because there were so few of us left to model a good work ethic, they ended up feed off of each others' bad habits.

I feel for my friend, Suzanna, and I feel for everyone over 40 who is looking for employment with a indefinitely tenuous economy facing them down. Age discrimination goes far deeper than a fear of hiring a "slow" worker, one with out-of-date skills, or one who might soon have medical issues; it goes directly to the heart of Western society's abject fear of growing older and its worship of youth culture. (Take a look at shows such as American Idol, The Real World, and The Apprentice, and one might get the idea that Big Good Opportunities are reserved only for those who have no need to reach for the box of Miss Clairol.)

Given the pervasiveness and longevity of this mindset, the more mature worker will never be a "good fit."