Ageism is illegal in the UK, but in the same way that motorway speeding and public urination are illegal.
It’s only a problem if you’re caught, and even then you’ll probably escape with nothing more than a bit of wee in your pants.
And, like motorway speeding and (I’m told) weeing in public, ageism happens all the time. It’s the basis of one of my most hated quotes, from George Bernard Shaw, that “youth is wasted on the young”. Grow up, George. What a boring thing to say. Young people have a mountain of gold in front of them, but none of the wits to mine it. The elderly throw pickaxes from a distance, telling us to stop buying overpriced coffee and start investing in penny stocks.
It’s easy for me to joke about this stuff, because it doesn’t really affect me (yet). Yes, I might be denied a job on account of my age — but my time, god willing, will come. I just need to wait my turn, before I can feast from the cornucopia of middle-aged favour. But what about the people who’ve run out of turns?
Per last week’s edition of The Times, almost half of recruiters think 57 is too old for a job. This is soft language, considering recruiters are responsible for putting people forward for jobs. The reality of the situation is that jobseekers are missing out on jobs once they’re 57 years old. ‘Millions of people risk being overlooked because of entrenched ageism in recruitment, despite the shortage of skilled workers’.
‘Two thirds of HR professionals admitted making assumptions about a candidate based on their age’.
‘One in seven job applicants over the age of 50 has been explicitly rejected from a job because of their age’. It’s a tough read, with or without reading glasses.
This discrimination affects both sides of the age-employment bell curve. The young workforce, particularly women, are suffering. One in seven of those aged 18-35 said they’d been rejected for a job, because of their youth. Nearly half of under-35s have been questioned about their family plans in a job interview. I suspect that ‘nearly half’ was more than nearly half made up of women, too.
The simple explanation is that in the absence of regulation, recruitment practices have deviated to the mean. A simpler, more realistic explanation is that this has always been the case — we’ve just had another study reprove it. Regardless of causality, it would seem that the Goldilocks zone of employment is back. It lies, give or take, in the realm of 35-50, based on this cross-industrial report. For industries like advertising, it’s much younger. The statement is clear: don’t be too young, or too old. Be just right.
So what can you do, if you don’t fall within that bracket? Firstly, take your age off your CV. Remove the dates of your education. Then, start playing the game.
If you’re younger, get straight to M&S. Pick up something 40 year olds wear. Straight-legged beige slacks. Black heels. Whatever it is, buy it. Take up golf. Keep a pair of secateurs in the back pocket of your trousers. Have a child, or make one up — but make sure to clarify that you have a nanny, so that your child won’t interfere with work. Start saying “Right!” and slapping your knees before getting up to leave any room. Complain about the same knees. Always say “Shall we rock and roll?” after paying your bill in a restaurant.
If you’re older, delete the term ‘O-level’ from your vocabulary. Then, head online to somewhere like ASOS and Shein. You’ll need to claim that you’re ‘purpose and value-driven’ in your interviews, but your fashion choices should be anything but. Corduroy is still OK. Start saying ‘slay’ as excessively as you can, whenever anything good happens. Listen to Sabrina Carpenter. Don’t ever say, “Carpenter? I hardly know her”. Make sure to shake your head whenever the term ‘empire’ is used in conversation. Take your allocated mental health days. Obtain a miniature dachshund. Start an Instagram page for it, where you speak in the language you suspect the dog might, if it were human, and slightly thick.
I’m joking. Don’t do any of this. It won’t work. If Age UK is being found guilty of ageism, then the situation is beyond saying “please, please, please”. That’s a Sabrina Carpenter joke, which you should all understand by now.
The onus, and therefore the solution, should not lie with the applicant, but those hiring them. This is not just recruiters — but hiring managers, PLCs, HR departments, and executive leaders. Ageism will persist until hiring preference is no longer associated with age. Yes, measures like blind CV screening, bias training and recruitment regulation help to flatten the age-recruitment bell curve — but the problem won’t ever go away. How could it?
It is almost impossible to prove ageism. It is almost impossible to prevent it happening.
There might be a chance you’re being discriminated against on grounds of ageism — but how can you prove it wasn’t because of your lack of expertise? How can you prove that it was because of your profile, not your personality? Most of the time, you can’t.
The sad fact of reality is that age, either in excess or deficit, is a penalty to employment. If you fall outside the Goldilocks zone on either side, you will find yourself at a disadvantage (unless you’re in the elderly bracket, and aiming for C-suite roles). You have no choice but to fight it. That means being considerably better than the person who isn’t too young or old, in order to get the same job. Being a better culture fit. Trying harder. Getting paid less. Bringing something that others can’t, and doing things that others won’t.
Further studies, articles and uproars are unlikely to have an impact. If anything, this is a problem that’ll likely get worse with the rise of AI screening in recruitment processes. But if you’re an employer who still asks about age, family plans, or bedtimes in your interview process, you’re doing it wrong.
The future workplace has to be ageless. If yours isn’t, then you’re wasting youth on the young, and experience on the elderly.
Just because someone is older than you, doesn’t mean they can’t play the game too. After all, in the words of George Bernard Shaw: ‘We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing’.
