Age proofing resume and signaling towards younger workers in job descriptions/post

In many cases, older workers tend to “age-proof” their resumes to avoid descriptors such as years of experience or year of graduation from school. Some also use languages such as “seasoned” as a pose to stating actual number of years. As I was researching, I Google searched some variations of words “age proofing” and resumes. My single query of “age proofing your resume” resulted in 190,000 hits. The issue of age-proofing and avoiding red flags such as years of experience, old educational information, replacing older versions of job titles with new ones, jargons etc, has been much discussed in popular media. This process must work.
In reserve, the employers might be adding and abetting in the process of age discrimination is a very covert way. We know that we cannot be asked about our nationality, sexual practice etc at a job interview. Similarly the Age Discrimination Act prohibits the employers from making any discrimination in terms of age. This makes any overt indication of preference to age in a job advertisement post highly unlikely. Yet, there are also some covert way to implying such preferences. This can be conscious or subconscious. While briefly scanning through job posting in Career Builder website, most of the postings seem to look for applicant with 2 to 10 years of experience. This basically disqualifies those with less than those two years and most importantly those with more than 10 years.
While analyzing resumes exploring the supply side of this process seemed exciting, doing so will likely prove to be time and resource constraining. Job postings/descriptions look at the demand side of the hiring process, are public and accessible data and also falls within my scope of interest.

My experiences as a Recruiter

My own humble observation suggests that such preferences towards younger individuals tend to be due to four reasons. Firstly, younger individuals means more years of productivity. When you train someone young, employers hope to keep them for a longer time and expect returns of their investment for a longer time. Secondly, younger individuals also mean they are presumably more technologically savvy and in tune with new developments in the field. Thirdly, it might mean that they have fresher ideas. And lastly, older or more experienced individuals might mean more salaries.
Throughout the several months long project, my director stressed time and again that the ideal candidate for this position would be “fresh” and “young” professional just out of Management school or someone with 3 to 4 years of experience although the job description provided to us clearly stated that the company was looking for someone “seasoned”. This was done in a very overt manner within the organization. It is also good to note that this observation was made before recession had in effects in the job market. It was also implied that as a recruiter I should be able to read resumes and voices while interviewing and be able to distinguish whether it is of a younger or older individuals.

Questionnaire Design

The survey will avoid pitfalls of questions like “double negative question”, “leading questions”, “double barreled”, “jargon”, etc. By using simple and straightforward language, the research can generate more accurate answers (Asher 2007:59-61). The answer categories should also be straight forward, avoid multiple categories that can be selected, avoid jargons and not overlap answer choices (Asher 2007:61).
The order in which the questions are asked may also present some problems (Asher 2007:69). This questionnaire will avoid listing questions in such a manner that conditions the answer to the following question. Once again, pre testing the questionnaire can illuminate any obvious conditioning questions and help the survey be more accurate. Also, by having an interviewer conduct the interview over a telephone, the problems associated with question order, context and visual effects can be further decreased (Asher 2007:73). Being aware of “context” in which the question is asked is also equally important (Asher 2007:74). The framework in which the questions appear is very important. Also, to keep in mind is the broader social context such as political and socio-economic conditions as well as personal issues (Asher 2007:74). In relation to this present research, down labor market and declining job availability, more competition to a position, difficulty in retaining a job, avoiding being fired are likely to affect older workers more. This situation provides this research a very unique qausi-experiment type benefit. In the current labor market, older individuals might find that they have to compete aggressively with younger workers even more. This might reduce their chances of getting hired or prolong their job search.