Read this and then let me tell you a story about a certain Baby Boomer I know.
While Hollywood makes light of the torch passing from one generation to another, the hard reality is that there is some serious age discrimination going on out there an it's seething just under the surface.
This guy I know was laid off from a fairly lucrative job nearly three years ago. At the time he didn't think much of it. Business was down and in a small company, sales declines mean people lose jobs. But what he wasn't prepared for was the almost simultaneous start of open season on Baby Boomers.
He had an impeccable resume, worked on some high-profile projects and considered himself quite marketable. What he found was an endless string of black holes into which his resume had fallen.
Part of his strategy was to use the Internet job sites to track down and land the next job, but after sending hundreds of resumes without even a nibble, he decided to revamp his resume and see what happened.
He suspected that age might be a problem so he started by removing all the dates from his resume. He left it in chronological order, but didn't publicize the fact that he graduated college in 1977. Within a week he had an enquiry from the human resources manager of a California firm.
In the following week they spoke on the phone a couple of times, each time "passing" to the next step and finally to an online personality profile. Everything seemed ok and it sounded to him like he had a real rapport with the recruiter.
Then came the interview. They flew him out, put him up in a nice hotel and the next day he reported to the office for an interview. According to him, the look on her face said it all. As if she had never considered the applicant might be over 40.
That was the last time he heard from them. Phone calls weren't returned, e-mails were left unanswered and needless to say, he didn't get the job. He's still looking.
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