Battling Ageism in Job Searches
More and more these days we keep hearing and reading about ageism as an obstacle to those over forty in finding managerial positions.
Supporting this is a survey conducted by ExecuNet, a job-search service and networking organization. ExecuNet found that 94% of executives over the age of 40 said that they thought their age was a contributing factor that cost them from landing a particular job. There can be no doubt that ageism exists to one degree or another. Is that unfair? Yes it is! And it is illegal. But, what can you do about it? First you have to simply accept that you may have an obstacle that your younger competitors don’t. Second, YOU NEED TO TURN THAT OBSTACLE INTO A STRENGTH!
To do this, let’s examine why ageism may appear to be an issue in some cases. When a hiring executive or recruiter is looking at three, four or five finalists for a managerial position they may subconsciously give the younger candidate more credit if the accomplishments of the candidates appear to be similar. Why? Because the hiring executive will think of the younger person in this way: “Hey, this person accomplished a lot in a short period of time!” That translates into the younger candidate being considered more ambitious, harder driving and smarter… and hence the superior candidate for the job.
However, as all of us over 40 (yes I’m a geezer too) know that maturity and life experience can make an even bigger difference when it comes to leading people, integrating quickly into the new company and in handling unique or challenging situations.
So why don’t hiring executives or recruiters… who quite often are over 40 themselves… consider these factors? I’ll answer that question from experience as a hiring executive. Most candidates over 40 do not communicate this additional value that they can deliver to the hiring company!
Now you know why I bolded, italicized and underlined the phrase “appear to be similar”. Don’t allow yourself to appear to be similar in the interview when you are most assuredly not similar. Make sure that you communicate in a winning way the tangible value of your unique experience. If you have thirty years of experience, make sure that you communicate it in such a way that it doesn’t appear that you have ten years of experience, repeated three times!
Also, with age should come some wisdom. Wisdom is conveyed through controlled self-confidence, not the cockiness of the twenty-eight your old whiz kid, but the confidence of an experience business professional. A professional who not only has a proven track record of success but who has the maturity to lead a team to even better results and who has enough experience to deal with anything from a sudden crisis, changes in economic conditions, hiring properly and firing when needed.
With all of this in mind, how do you prepare for the interview so that you can convey all of this with controlled self-confidence being what you portray? The simple answer is to avoid the three deadly mistakes that most interviewers make.
The first mistake is not preparing your answers to potential questions; including the first question you will be asked, So, tell me about yourself”. The second mistake is rambling. You should never take more than two minutes to answer an interviewer’s question. If your answer takes longer than two minutes, you are rambling and you will loose the interviewer’s attention. The third mistake is not asking questions designed to uncover what their needs are and any potential objections to you as a candidate so that you can deal with those objections and show how you have the EXPERIENCE to meet their needs.
Through diligent preparation of your resume and through preparation for the interview, you can turn being over 40, 50 or 60 to your advantage and leave the younger fold in the dust!
