An obvious attempt to block older workers is discriminatory, but the block can appear to be reasonable. As more baby boomers continue working past the traditional retirement age, either for the money or to avoid boredom, more of us run into these roadblocks.
The problem crops up when dated information is required. This mostly happens when confronted with a drop-down list of years for high school or advanced education graduation. Sometimes the drop-down list does not extend back far enough, such as high school graduation years no older than 1980. In other cases, the correct year is available, but then the date can be used to improperly screen out applicants.
The San Francisco Fed completed a research project using over 40,000 test “applicants” that they created across a broad range of ages and split between genders. The results are mostly bad news for boomers:
- Older men saw as much as a 30% drop in callbacks from the resumes.
- Worse yet, older women saw both age and gender discrimination that resulted in a much as a 47% drop in callbacks.
You can read more complete details online at the San Francisco Fed.
Some of the online sites have corrected this problem by completely removing required graduation year listing. State Attorney General offices are reviewing the issue and legal action could be taken.
On the other hand, Gary Vaynerchuk thinks starting a business is a better answer. It sounds crazy, but guyz have done it and are doing it right now
