Do Outplacement And Most Career Coaches Make Job Search Ageism Worse?

Outplacement professionals and most career coaches/authors teach some common strategies to avoid ageism - Trying to hide from it by hiding your age. Have you gotten advice to try an hide your age or make your resume "ageless" by excluding information like early jobs, or dates on your resume?

The theory behind this advice is that Applicant Tracking Systems can search for dates prior to a target date, to estimate age. It's true, they can, but you'll find out why employers rarely use this capability.

Unfortunately, trying to hide from ageism make the effects of job search ageism even worse.

Here are some of the things this advice ignores:

• HR department responsibilities include making sure the company complies with hiring laws.?Allowing their recruiters to search based on dates provides evidence and audit trails of discriminatory hiring. That's why few employers screen out resumes based on dates.
• ATSs can search for the lack of data where it's expected?(IT professionals call this a "null search"). Employers search for excluded data to screen out resumes that are hiding information, including really bad things employers want to avoid (theft, fraud, jail time) and hiding age.
• HR reps, recruiters and hiring managers can also tell you're hiding information.?If they get to the end of your resume, they're interested, no longer skimming, but reading every word in detail. It sticks out like a red flag when dates are excluded, making your reader realize you're hiding something. It forces your reader to guess what you're hiding: Is it your age or something worse? Hiding dates are also what candidates do when they're trying to hide jail time, jobs with bad endings, theft, fraud, etc. It's part of HR/recruiter's jobs to screen this bad behavior out ... along with resumes that try to hide age.
• Face-to-face interviews risk your resume set a perception you can't live up to.?Let's say you get a face to face (or zoom) interview - What then? How many years did you leave off your resume? Did you portray yourself as 5, 10, 15, 20 years younger than you really are? You could have Joan Rivers' levels of plastic surgery, but do you really think you can pull off this deception to a stranger? In reality, your interviewer almost always sees through this, making it impossible to establish trust ... you might as well have not even shown up, because you're not going to advance.

Instead of making job search ageism worse by using bad advice, why not learn how to use age to your advantage? Let me show you how to beat ageism so you can find a great job fast during the recession.

I help people solve the most difficult job search problems, including getting past ATSs, ageism, remote positions, product/job function/career/industry/ geographic change, job search acceleration, unemployment, "bouncy" recent career path, job search turnaround, seeking raise/promotion, industry in decline/consolidation, long term gaps, family leave, or other of the most challenging job search issues.

Join me for my next free Resume Revolution! webinar (enroll at https://x.resumewebinar.com/register for no charge) to learn how to overcome tough job search problems, and accelerate your job search.

#jobs #resume #career