That’s of course if you’re lucky enough to have reached a sufficient age and you’re unlucky enough for it to still be around when you find yourself job hunting once more.
That was my situation last year. I understand it’s not at all the same as the life-long discrimination experienced by those with other protected characteristics that is felt more deeply and I can’t know personally. And I’m not going to bore you with my own grumbles. But I will relate what I’ve heard and seen from recruiters that show how ageism is still rife in the media. Several news stories in the last few months have underlined that it’s still a problem, in the wider recruitment market and in magazines.
After several decades, I was on the job market again at the age of 57, which just happens to be the average age at which candidates find themselves considered ‘too old’ for job roles, according to a survey from Totaljobs. It found one in seven over-fifties had explicitly been turned down for a job because of their age, showing it’s not just a perception but a reality. A third worry about it, leading to one-fifth leaving their age off their CVs. A third of over-fifties fear they won’t get another job due to age discrimination — higher among women and much higher among black workers.
That it’s worse for women is the experience of Lindsay Nicholson, former editorial director of Good Housekeeping, based on her anecdotal evidence. Writing in The Times, she says ageism came as a shock: “For 18 years, I was editorial director of Britain’s biggest-selling glossy magazine, which I diversified onto multiple platforms, adding new revenue streams. I was exceptionally well paid and named editor of the year twice. The redundancy was a business decision and my employers treated me well. But at 61, I was out of a job — for the first time in 40 years... At an age when I should have been burnishing my professional legacy and topping up my pension, I confronted the harsh reality described in a recent news report that almost half of recruiters think 57 is too old.”
“Faced with my own unemployability, despite a glittering CV and even an MBE, I reorganised my finances and built a portfolio career, easily landing several senior non-exec directorships. Prestigious, rewarding — and none of them remunerated.”
The Totaljobs survey found nearly three in five HR decision-makers admitted making assumptions about candidates based on age, with 42% under pressure from colleagues to prioritise younger candidates. I was pleased to employ some amazingly experienced, older candidates during my career, but I would sometimes be given HR advice like, “are you sure? At his age, he might just be here for the pension.” Or, “you know, once he’s here, you’ll never get rid of him,” — a curious concern in a world where lack of loyalty is more often the problem.
It shouldn’t, but it does
Totaljobs isn’t alone; I found media recruitment agencies all recognised it one way or another, usually verbally but sometimes in written advice. “Yes, it’s illegal, no it shouldn’t happen, but yes it does,” said one’s Q&A section for candidates. They go on to explain the nature of the prejudices and what you can try to counter them.
One assumption is that older candidates are less flexible, adaptable or open to new ideas — in short, ‘stuck in their ways’. So, you have to ramp up those experiences of dealing with change: staff restructures, constant brand reinvention and diversification, understanding of the new routes to market and all the other changes you’ve managed in a media career.
That assumption about adaptability extends to our understanding of technology too. Over fifties, it’s thought, aren’t so good with tech. Like all stereotypes, there might be a grain of truth in it that older people themselves go along with but that doesn’t mean it’s always or even generally true. And again, it’s worse for women. The familiar advertising line about “technology so simple even your granny can use it” has always infuriated one grandmother I know. But this stereotype affects people younger than you might think.
The familiar boilerplate for job ads goes: “We do not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, gender, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability...” Which is all fine. Except I saw this very text on the footer of several job ads that, if you scrolled back up, you could see opened with the very first question, “are you a digital native?”
That instantly rules out anyone born before 1980 at the earliest, possibly later. Never mind that I’ve covered cutting edge tech over four decades, can code for the web in half a dozen languages and have overseen several brands’ digital transformations. I would self-identify as a digital native if I could but I’m literally too old to do that.
In that Totaljobs survey, nearly half the HR decision-makers thought a candidate’s age influences their ‘cultural fit’ within the organisation. That’s another difficulty over-fifties face: the tendency to assume we all hold outdated views and attitudes. That means older candidates have to work that bit harder to prove their values align with the corporate environmental and social goals.
Am I just an MPS? Male, pale and stale? It’s a label to call out privilege and for sure the first two are. But ‘stale’ means old. That may not be a problem for director-level, middle-aged male establishment managers but it is for everyone else further down the hierarchy. And the research shows ageism hits other groups much harder.
Totaljobs concludes from its survey that ageism risks overlooking 4.2m people in England and Wales alone, affecting £138bn in economic output, not to mention the various social costs. With rising skills shortages, we can’t afford that loss in the media or anywhere else.
Although far less common, ageism can also of course affect young people too. “Oh, it works that way as well,” says one very cheeky Gen Z digital native and close relative, “I thought it was just a thing to make old people think they’re still relevant.” Yes, very funny — it could be you one day, I thought. But I hope not.
This article was first published in InPublishing magazine. If you would like to be added to the free mailing list to receive the magazine, please register here.
