Ageism, not just for the elderly?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Ageism means to discriminate against persons on the basis of their age. Usually this term is used to describe hiring practices that exclude the elderly. I in no way wish to downplay how common it is for the elderly to be victims of this, but I’d like to shed some light on the other side of the coin.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to obtain a professional job if you’re very young, too. A local paper reported that in my state entry-level jobs have been cut in all professions by 30% a year for the past two years. Instead most of the ads ask for X degree plus 5 or more years experience. Obviously, if one has only been out of college a couple of years as I have, they can dismiss my application arbitrarily, despite whatever qualifications I have, simply because I’m too young to have the experience they require. I find this trend disturbing, because it seems that all fields are eliminating entry level positions and replacing them with ones that require several years experience to avoid having to even interview people who are young. Unfortunately, most of the people I know who my age are bouncing from one long temp assignment to the next, trying to get the experience they need-without any benefits, like health, of course. I consider myself luckier than many, because few early childhood Ed positions require more than 2 years experience, and I’m hopeful that I’ll find a permanent position by the end of the summer.

So…do you consider these practices of eliminating entry level positions in favor of ones requiring years of experience to fit the definition of “ageism”? If not, is it fair or unfair?

2

No, that is not ageism. Experience is probably one of the most legitimate criteria for hiring a person. Remember that companies are not in the training business. They want someone who can start right away.

Think of it from the company’s perspective. If you have the choice between a college grad and a collage grad w 5 years experience, who would you hire?

3

I’d hire the kid out of college for these reasons:

  1. He’d probably be more loyal because he’d know he was given a break, and that he’d probably not get another one quickly if he walked out
  2. He’d take less pay than someone who has some real sense of their value to a company
  3. He wouldn’t be bringing any baggage from his old job, in attitude or practice, to this one so I’d have a better shot a training him to do what’s needed without arguments about how “we did things like this at…”

However, I wasn’t asking if wanting to hire someone with experience vs someone without was fair. I asked if it’s fair to eliminate all entry level positions so you don’t have to hire anyone who is young. Presumably, the guy with 5+ years of experience isn’t going to have his application thrown out if he applies for a job that doesn’t require as much experience as he has, right? So he could apply for either position, but the new grad couldn’t, without the avalibity of entry-level positions, and is being stonewalled because the company decided it didn’t want to deal with someone who is less exeperienced.

Expecting someone else to give your potential workers experience seems risky at best to me, and eventually they’re not going to be able to hire anyone to their standards, but that’s their problem.

4

As a person 3 years out of college, I think college kids are mistaken if they think “entry-level” jobs will be something that they are directly interested in. An “entry-level” job gains you “entry” into a company you are interested in working for. Most if not all companies prefer to promote candidates from within. Once they know you and your work habits, they will be more willing take a risk on you even if you are not quite as qualified as they would like. That is the basis of the idea of entry-level positions.

If you are talking about technical positions, then just chuck the experience requirements out the window for the most part – many computer languages/technologies, etc have not even been around 5 years. (like, no one can have 5+ years experience at Dreamweaver, it was only released in 1997)

Currently, I work on an editorial staff at a large national bookseller. My entry-level job was doing email support and customer service for their website.

Entry-level positions are things like fact-checkers, telephone supprt, technical support, administrative assistants, etc. People have to be prepared to pay their dues.

“Expecting someone else to give your potential workers experience seems risky at best to me”

Your reasoning is a bit flawed re: having the opportunity to train. These days people rarely, if ever, spend 5+ years with an employer. Therefor, all that “training” will be for someone else’s benefit in the long run. Ergo, it makes more sense to hire someone with the experience, so you don’t have to train them extensively.

5

Elfkin, companies in New Hampshire have cut 30% of their entry-level jobs, huh?

Sounds like Louisiana, where I lived until last November. I tried to find an entry-level job in IT (I’m a DBA) in New Orleans, but there was little available.

So, I cast my job search net wider. Eventually, I ended up in Mississippi. Houston, Charlotte, and Atlanta are better-known Southern hotspots with loads of entry-evel tech jobs.

What is your field?

About ageism – when IT companies look to fill a position, they often shoot for the moon in their want ads. They’ll ask for 5 years experience, but will consider most ALL comers who have the necessary skill set. Often, a 2- or 3-year person will get the job, especially if the 5-year+ folks price themselves out.

In other words, I’d advise you to apply for those 5-years-experience job, anyway. Apply like a madman. Don’t be deterred easily. Make applying for jobs your full-time job for right now. Your results will surprise you.

6

This is not quite true. Many college grads take a job because its the only one they can get. Quite often, they will stay at a big name company for a year or two and then move on. I know people (including myself) who have changed jobs 3-4 times or more in as many years since college.

Have you ever met anyone who thought they were being paid too much? Many college grads tend to overestimate their value to their company.

Many companies like law firms and consulting firms like to hire college grads so they can indoctrinate them into their culture. But, if you only have a couple years experience, you shuld also have sense enough not to be like “we did things this way”.

Also, firms don’t like people who wear their former employer on their sleave. My director at my last company used to get pissed at one of our PMs because she would always be like “when I was at Andersen Consulting…”. At one point he was like “if you liked it so much, why don’t you go back there”.

But, the fact of the matter is that come hiring time, a year of Big-5 experience looks a lot better than no experience.

Who told you that the business world was fair? You can apply for whatever position you like. But the reality is if its between you and a guy with experience, the experienced guy wins out, all other things being equal.
Ageism has nothing to do with experience. It has to do with only hiring certain age groups or excluding age groups because they don’t fit into the corporate ‘culture’. And even then, it’s very difficult to prove.

7

There’s a flipside to all of these points.

  1. He may be less loyal, since one job was easy enough to come buy, why not two? And (as I’m discovering) it’s a lot easier to quit jobs when you’re young and inexperienced than when you get older and it starts looking bad on a CV.

  2. Absolutely not true (in the UK, at least). Graduates are so often portrayed as overpaid, most seem to expect it.

  3. True, but the reverse of ‘not bringing baggage’ is ‘not bringing experience’, which is at least as desirable to an employer.

8

Having been on both sides of the job interview desk, let me say a few things.

Yes, there are some companies that use elimination criteria. They X, Y, and Z qualifications and if you don’t have exactly that or better you never even get the interview.

There are other companies that will say, OK, not this position but keep your resume and maybe you’ll get an interview.

There are other places that will interview anyone who applies, even those who don’t appear qualified on paper. This is usually for a position that doesn’t have a heap of qualified applicants.

One mistake made by young folks is underestimating their qualifications. For instance, my current job requires some familiarity with medical terminology. I have no formal medical training and my degree is in fine arts. However, at the interview I pointed out that I have four close family members who are pharmacists, I used to type school papers freelance for students at one of our local medical schools, and I had to study anatomy to get my art degree. I had worked temp jobs at clinics. The result is that I have a greater than average knowledge of medicine than the average person. I was willing to demonstrate this on the spot by “translating” the titles of several articles in medical journals into layman’s terms. The trick is, I can’t put it on my resume, I had to somehow get myself the interview where I could bring this up. The fact is, they were having a lot of trouble finding an administrative assistant with medical knowledge. I knew this, and knew they were interviewing everyone who applied wheather they looked qualified on the resume or not.

Which brings up the whole idea of “adminsitrative assistant” being an entry level position. Sometimes it’s entry level, sometimes it’s not. The upper end is starting to be called “executive assistant”. In some cases it requires a college degree and considerable experience, with salaries ranging from 40k to 70k (you have to be really hot shit for the 70k jobs, needless to say). My current position, on paper, requires either a bachelor’s degree in secretarial sciences (preferred) or 12+ years experience, plus knowledge of medical terminology. The only thing I had going in officially was a total of 7 years secretarial experience. I applied anyway because 1) I desparately needed a new job and 2) I knew the job was a good fit even if my resume didn’t quite match their requirements. I heard that the director had an argument with HR after my interview, along the lines of “I don’t care what isn’t on her resume, she’s exactly what we’re looking for! Hire her!”

Back to the young and the job-hunting - temp work does have it’s disadvantages, true, but it can also give you valuable experience. If you work temp for a couple years, then use this to your advantage - you’re used to changing to meet the needs of a new assignment, you’re flexible, you’re adaptable, you’ve seen a variety of businesses. When I worked temp I worked on construction sites, real estate offices, MCI, a methadone clinic, the American Osteopathic Association, Ford, several small advertising agencies, Citibank, Anderson Consulting, insurance companies, law firms, an art museum … so when I go in for a job interview I can say “I’ve worked for all these different sorts of companies - I know I can adapt to just about any business environment.” That’s valuable Being able to change with the needs of the job is just as important as experience in many cases. I also pointed out that, although I was hopping from one assignment to another for many years, I stayed with the same agency all that time - I was moving around because that was the nature of the job, not because I couldn’t keep a job. My actual employer remained constant.

Is this easy? No, it’s not. Job hunting is hard work.