Your Age – A Whole New Look
There are many ways for employers to determine your age when you are applying for a job. They may ask you to complete a job application. This can be a sticky situation, on one hand you can refuse to answer sections that ask for your years graduated from high school or college. You might not want to share this information since it is a back door way of determining your age. Not completing the application may bring attention to the fact that you do not want to answer the questions because you are hiding your age. The hiring manager might also think that you can not follow instructions. What should you do?
A number of people suggest that you do not put your date of birth or year that you graduated from college on the job application. For a long time I was in agreement with this philosophy, after all my age does not determine my ability to do the job. Why were so many people preoccupied with it?
The reality was I was preoccupied with it. I knew that I would not be selected for some positions because of age discrimination. So I tried my best to hide my age and not post my complete work history on paper. Then recruiters who contacted me told me that I needed to place my entire work history and graduating dates on my resume if I was going to demand the salary that I was looking for. The employers want someone with my experience, all of it, not just the most recent 15 years. I had a wealth of knowledge and if I wanted to have the opportunity to share it with a new employer I needed to share it on paper so they could see it. Demonstrating accomplishments in past positions and showing increasing levels of responsibility with each new position allowed the prospective employer to see me as a whole person as opposed to the holes in my work experience that I had intentionally left out in the past.
I rewrote my resume to include my full work experience, dates of graduation and a funny thing happened, I started to get more job offers. I became less preoccupied with my age and so did my prospective employers. Ask yourself this question, which employer would you rather work for, one that knows your experience and age and values the knowledge and experience you bring to the position or the employer who was more concerned about your age then you ability? My choice would be to disclose my age and the invaluable experience that those years of working has taught me. It is better to work for an employer who values you and what you have to offer their organization.
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November 9th, 2007 at 7:44 am
I totally agree with what the recruiters told you as I think that withholding information also lends itself to distrust and you don’t want to start off your relationship with your employer that way. I like your emphasis on you as the whole person, too, as you are the sum of all your experience, no matter how long ago. Very good advice.