Last week the media was full of reports highlighting the results of a survey by the online recruitment group TotalJobs. The key takeaway was that the age 57 was cited as the age when HR and recruitment professionals feel is too old to be hired and individuals are not being shortlisted for interviews even if skills and experience match the job specification.
There were some areas of the research that I concurred with and others that I didn't. Or rather, the interpretation of the results and the 'insight' that was developed from it.
From my own 20+ years in recruitment, I've always seen age discrimination at play. The bulk of my clients are advertising, creative, digital and PR & marketing agencies. It's not all Mad Men but it can be similar. It has always been seen as a 'young person's industry' and in the past when individuals have met redundancy in their fifties, I've often wondered how sustainable it is to have such a short shelf life in the industry. Do Lawyers and Accountants have the same issue? In the past week I've read a lot of media commentary about how age discrimination is wrong and how employers are losing out on many years of skills and experience. Absolutely. And whilst young people are enthusiastic, full of energy and ambition, not yet cynical or tired of climbing the ladder, they need older people to learn from and whilst certain 'jobs' can be performed by people of any age, sometimes, having more life experience, having managed different challenging situations, challenging clients etc - that's also essential in a balanced work environment.
TotalJobs stated that 'people have started leaving their date of birth off their CVs. Well, from my view of the world, people stopped including their date of birth on their CVs a long time ago. Even Gen Z don't include their date of birth. It's another truth that pretty much all recruiters will work out a date of birth backwards - looking at when someone finished a degree or just counting the years of experience.
This is where age discrimination is passed onto being the responsibility of an external recruiter. An agency will brief me on a role and they may say, 'we want an Account Director with over 5 years experience'. If I present them with 5 CVs, if any candidates are even nearing their sixties, I'm not going to be able to guarantee an interview. I will hear 'not the right fit', or 'team structure requires a different fit', 'overqualified' or 'won't suit the culture' - which of course is a 'young' culture. To be fair, I'm sure exactly the same would happen with an internal recruitment team.
Looking at when most people are expecting to retire - which is possibly in some cases, never, people in the creative sector almost need to be looking for a second career to take them from their fifties into their late sixties. The creative sector is certainly not well paid enough for everyone to retire early and unless things change, individuals might well not join the sector because they see a short shelf life. We can't all rely on B&Q to take us all on so this whole subject does need to be discussed and brought out into the open. TotalJobs (generously in my view), said that in most cases it was 'unconscious bias' but I'd say it's out and out age discrimination.
The irony is, that older people in the creative sector, don't come across as older at all. They're generally very aware of youth culture and are far more hip than their age might suggest. Generationally, a 57 year old now is a long way off a 57 year old 20 years ago. They're still well aware of all the marketing channels and of different audiences - they haven't just become 'old and decrepit'.
Sadly, when redundancies are made, it's far more often the older and more senior employees who are selected. Often, it's a simple equation to cut numbers and the salaries of these older and more experienced individuals make it (redundancy) a straightforward decision. Finding a new job in your late fifties in the creative sector is hard. And finding a job when you are out of work is harder psychologically anyway - for a month or so, one is engaged and enthused but after a number of rejections, the enthusiasm wanes and it becomes harder to 'sell yourself' to prospective employers.
In the creative sector, many of the older and out of work employees tend to end up doing 'consultancy work' - typically they will not have a lot of consultancy work and so will end up finding alternative routes of employment. Currently that includes warehouse work, delivery driving and TEFL. I don't have the answers, this whole subject requires a cultural shift in how businesses and bosses think but it feels like a sorry way to end a career and I know several candidates who live in fear of redundancy which is a very real threat in what has been a tough year for creative agencies.
So whilst I might not have agreed with everything in the TotalJobs survey, I'm glad that the subject is out there and being discussed. Hopefully we're all going to make it past 57 and it would be nice to do so knowing that we are still able to continue doing the jobs we love and keep topping up that pension pot so that when - eventually - retirement comes we can enjoy it.
Written by Fiona. 14th October 2024.