Too Old to Hire?

yes i agree with you i am an EX-CATERPILLAR employee and laid of for because of my age i was 53year old in 2005 ,how ever with my contacts with customers world wide for whom i had executed projects , and very rich hands on experience gained while i was with CATERPILLAR and huge engineering knowledge gained while with caterpillar i was able to find a placement for my self in India as consultent with resanable package of thake home pay, finding a placement at old age is not an issue provided if one is not entangled with education of children and other family related issues may be one may not find the pay package as rosy as it was before getting the pink silp,we the old hags has to adapt to the changed culture and circumstences.

crm

I WAS LAID OF BECAUSE I AM 76 YEARS OLD.

COMPANY CLAIMED THAT YHEY NEED TO CUT BECAUSE OF ECONOMY.

I WAS MAYKING AS ENGINEER LESS THEN WAREHOUSE WORKER BUT THEY STILL LAID ME OF.

Hi 76 years old Guest,

Why you stay and work in a company that respect warehouse workers more than you? You cannot blame them, it's your fault to stay and work for them, Gil.

NB: A human being, at all ages and more at 76, most be respected for its knowledge of the work and its work attitude!

As an older (now 55) engineering contractor I have personally experienced many times being laid off by younger, less experienced supervisors and I firmly believe that they feel threatened, that they are going to look bad and have their position compromised. Also, when looking for new positions being hired below grade is another difficulty as the employer feels, as previously stated, that as soon as a better job opens up I will be gone. Getting laid off for the above reason is a frequent possibility as I have often wondered how some of these "engineers" ever got where they are in the first place. Many of my jobs involve fixing existing designs. As far as being hired, more than likely chances are good for leaving a low skill level, low paying job for a higher skill level, better paying job and the employer will want to avoid that. Unless there is some future job potential that will always be the case.

"Many of my jobs involve fixing existing designs."

Low level managers dislike the idea of keeping those employees hired to fix their own mistakes or the things they themselves couldn't fix. Keeping these folks on staff is just bad Karma.

If you like being a problem solver best to adapt to a career as a "consultant". You will not fit well in a team oriented structure. (look at how many relief pitchers make it to Cooperstown)

If you really want to see a problem solved the best way to make it happen is to quietly present just enough of it to your boss so he can fill in the blanks and feel that he is the owner of the solution. Then do what you can to make it happen without ever uttering a peep about the origin. Another even better approach is to frame the solution as the opposite of what is the right way to go and and present it in just such a way that the boss will "creatively" offer what you intended in the first place. And of course since you have already thought the issue through you are in a good position to go make it happen making it look like it was the boss's great inspiration.

The price you pay in terms of lack of recognition or ego gratification buys a lot of layoff "insurance".

Ed Weldon

Hi Ed,

Your suggestions what and how to do with bosses and managers are excellent. However, in my early working age, I discover that bosses and managers don't understand your value for the company. You can caress the backs but they don't react the way you would like to and finally you never get the dreamed position in this company. The boss will be the boss after all and the manager do the same with the boss as you do with her/him, and finally, everyone plays defence and you get nothing.

The best, after my opinion, initially, tell the boss what you want and how you operate to fill the work you supposed to do. If the boss is smart, because you are, the boss know what to do with you. If not, find another boss!

At the end, by caressing the backs, you will find out that you became a politician and your real work will suffer of that.

Low level managers or not, they are already in the company and the top amangement accepted them and they defend their position. I would say that most team oriented structure doesn't fit to knowledgeable people. I talk about small companies with high ego, which dominate the business landscape!

My ratio of good boss and bad is 1 or 2, the maximum, on 22 in 54 years, Gil.

Yes but some of this is also experienced by younger people looking for jobs also. I can remember interviewing for a job out of college as a cad draftsmen for the City fo Salinas, and they started off asking me about my degree, spent significant time on that topic, and then asked about why I would want that job as a CAD draftsmen. You could definitely tell by the tone the interviewers that they were suspicious of me staying in that position for any period of time. So this kind of thing even happens to 20 somethings who may have a college education. I have heard this repeatedly a number of times, an interview for a geotechnical firm and they told me about their issues retaining people in field positions, and asked me if I had any plans for returning to school for a advanced degree, by their tone you knew the answer had to be no and even then they were suspicious. the Lower level management, particularly the middle aged or older, of potential employers are looking grunts with no apsirations, in part I believe they feel that they do not want someone who could aspire to promote and then create pressure on them due to competition their own bosses may use to advantage when salaries and advancement opportunities arise. If you could hire someone who is more aggressive and competent, why advance the long time employee, unless that manager feels the pressure agaisnt his own position.

So you are claiming there was some discriminatio because you lacked adequate understanding of the current technology that these companies used, and they had expressed a concern that you would be making a downward move in your career and would be looking to leave as soon as possible. that doesn't seem like age discrimination. The technology thing is a absolute basis for hire or not. If you are not relatively current in the technology the company uses you should never be hired in any case. I am surprised they gave you any other reasons. In addition, I have had companies express concerns about me taking jobs below my educational level many times in the past, in my 20s, so that is not an issue of age discrimination but rather a isue of a company not wanting to invest in someone who will get trained and leave. the threat thing, well that appears to be just your personal, opinion as there is no basis in your statement, and no one is going to say that in an interview. It does happen sometimes, but not usually with people who have an admitted substantial lack of technological experience or knowledge. how much of a threat in a technical position could any one be who does not understand how to do the job. Now if you were on the team that developed the software/languages they used to write their programs you might be a threat.

Hi Ric,

HR people are not stupid! They do what they learned, irrelevant to the degrees, and their boss put in front of their nose as rules in this company. In one word, the wish and ego of the boss!

Finally, you have the suggestion, create your own business, that means logic, profit, and satisfaction making. When you cannot be obedient to someone else, be your boss and the solution is yours.

Suggestion for new starters, "Sell, Design, and Produce" is the real idea in a business that everyone can start but only in that order. Why? Today, all business is based on marketing, identifying the product or service, communicate to prospects, and maintaining sales and services to customers. The delivery and production come after.

Prerequisites to successful business start-ups: Knowledge of it! Be differrent from others in the same profession! Will to work! Being simple and acting for simplification! Accept changes when it needed! Again, sell, design, and produce, and only in that order!

If you start your own business that way, you will succeed, Gil.

Hi god,

I don't accept the suggestion of just getting experienced people. When you start your own business, you are the knowledgeable person. You know what and how to do things. If not, don't start your endeavour!

When you know what to do in your future business, you are better with youngs and fresh minds. They listen and do what you want and need to do, just to keep the job or for really to learn. Experienced people do what they know and want to do. Olders don't want to learn. School time is over for them. They are comfortable and want to be that way. I all the time hired people out of the industry I worked because I want to teach them my ways to work. It's you to understand the difference between the both.

At 20s, I was dynamic and want to learn but I was just an ignorant. At 50s, I showed the results and if accepted, did the way I wanted because I have the knowledge of the what and how to do things in the profession.

When I started my own business, I sold my solution to another businesses and I get customers that way, presented the solution, and I produced and they picked up the solution as needed. And today I do the same.

I suggest you to read before you start your advanture: Laurence J. Pino: "Finding your niche" ISBN: 0-425-14148-9 / 1994

Have a good reading, Gil.

AS part of the business plan- EVENTUALLY we will not be able to hire the skills we need BUT by then, we will have an adequate team so that we can begin to hire the young bucks/does who will be the future of the company.

The experienced team will mentor them and give the new players 20 years of experience in 5 years so that, as the experienced members are ready to finally retire, we will have enough skilled younger players to replace them. As the saga continues, the EXPERIENCED young players will be able to hire more entry level players and continue the process.

this plan is highly dependent upon those older employees wanting to convey actual valuable experience as knowledge rather then only using the younger staff as grunts to do the nuissance work the older employees no onger are qualified, skilled and/or desiring to do themselves. Many older employees who do have some skillsets that are applicable in todays market still, seek to retain the value they have for future consulting work on their own part time back to their employer. Most however don't have the actually modern skillsets, and much like illiterate people tend to manipulate staff and others to doing the work they do not know how to, while involving themselves enough to make claims on their resume of self-import.

That is a definite possibility BUT the players that we will be hiring are recent Plant Engineers- folks who have HAD to be continually up to date with current techniques and practices AND who have already had to "train" up and coming stars as part of their daily operations.

Equally important- Our people will be VERY well covered- salary and benefits- and those who are not "team players" will leave very quickly to their dismay. Because of the first issue, and also because of their treatment and indoctrination into corporate beliefs we expect only the best from all involved.

Plant engineers however, have a tendency to be one of the worse groups of engineers about spending their time receiving a pay check until they can retire. Maybe this is due to the fact they usually aren't professional but rather part of the operating engineers union. (Though I do realize there is a huge difference between England and the rest in what is considered a professional engineer.) Not usually the best group to seek educators from, on the otherhand they aren't usually as skilled as consultants to seek to carve out future positions part-time consulting to their own companies on information they never trained subordinates about. To offset any imbalances in the tendency to keep knowledge they perceive as valuable close to the vest, sometimes it is best to seek out those who have both the private industry experience and also some college level teaching background. These part time teacher have a tendency to want to explain things to people and teach them what they have learned in industry that is slightly greater than the desire not to waste time training other stuff they could do themselves if paid properly.

All That you have said will be great until it happens to you!

Hi RCE,

It's an eye-opening comment and need reflection about it. I don't know the % of older people are out of the game but probably high. If we use Paretto's system, probably we reach over 80%. Hard to find the remaining useable 20%. During working years, everyone acquire and use skills that adopted from others or initiated by themselves, and finally become a routine. When the routine is installed in hands and minds, eventual and future changes are refused or not accepted by older routine workers. It's important to be different and routine is a major handicap to changes. It's real in every profession. Sales people, when they became good at, they don't change! When managers succeeded in some area, they refuse changes! Fear, ego or jealousy, who knows but there is the way older people are operating. Stay the same and be safe!

So, starting business, and I am not talking about an immediate corporation, the owner need to know what and how to do things from financial predictions to making products with the best equipment andf the most efficient way. This owner teach to young fellows what and how to do things through detailed written operations, standard operating procedures. Again, I talk about a starting business with only a single person or only with a few employees without financial individual in the organization.

Like you mention, older tend to manipulate and finally dominate. It's pain in the butt when the business starts. Concentration must be directed on sales, design, and production to supply and get paid. Never forget, all bills are paid by customers or better, by satisfied customers!

This is the way I see a starting business with adequate people to succeed. The only old person can be the owner with knowledge and experience, Gil.

GA. Inexperience can be much more expensive than the experienced worker. It seems a lot of companies think that they can hire younger people for less but ignore the hidden cost of formal training and on the job training. It can take workers years to be good at a job and they get better by making mistakes and learning from them. The experienced worker is less likely to make these same on the job mistakes.

When I operated a company, I went to a lot of effort to find experience before anything else. When I could not find that already trained person, I would then look for the best person to fit the bill and one who would be able to grow in a knowledge. If the person did not demonstrate a willingness to learn, they were usually not hired. I would use a set of problems, and give them a take home test that they would submit. The answers did not have to be correct (although it may gain points) but the responder needed to demonstrate an ability to research, and then communicate the answer. I would hire anyone regardless of age but sometimes age was a factor when training was expected to be long and the time of employment may be short. if I really wanted that person, they may have been a contract hiring with self imposed training schedules.

Hi Wamy,

As you tell us, "as long as they maintain" good attitude to the progress of the organization. All the time, we have to add these conditional words. I'm not here to demolish my age people! I am here to open the eyes for future business starters of every ages. If they listen they can succeed. I am not saying that my words are better than others sentences, I just detail what's happening in reality from my point of view and observation. Eye opening, succeesful adventures are an example to follow partially or totally. Everything and every action is a matter of choice!

Sorry to older people, I am one of them but we have to tell what is what in reality. This is the point, many things are hidden and people cannot see it. There is no solution when we don't understand the problem.

I have one opinion like many others but different. Let's start the business, Gil.

At this point answers #1 to #5 are right on and I have experienced similar. HR or company policy is a major problem. A good mix on newbies and oldies seems to produce a quality growth situation.

What you say has a lot of truth. I have often thought that we should hire an old guy/girl to act as mentor with a younger employee. It would seem to be an initial cost to the employer but could be sold as a win/win for everyone. The mentor may even want to consider working for less than top wage in his field but would be paired with an intern. The intern can do the keeping up with technology and the brunt of hard leg work. The mentor can review and direct the intern so he will not make many major mistakes.

I am not sure if it will keep you from going insane knowing that the person interning will eventually take over your job. However, I would try to sell your employment as a way to keep mentoring other new employees and perhaps even draw in several companies. It might be worth a resume/CV to various employers and describe a proposal to them. My field is groundwater geochemistry and microbiology and I still do some free mentoring and lecturing on occasion. Unfortunately, I am long in the tooth and short on health so I don't want to work full time. Work has always been a joy...well mostly but I have been lucky in life. However, I do describe an action that I think has merit for older employees seeking reasonable employment.

Well put. What the old guy/girl, has to offer, is wisdom, not necessarily knowledge.

Knowledge can be attained easily enough. Wisdom takes decades.

Hi Older Guest,

I understand your frustrations but today, it is the reality! I was in the same situation when at 65 want to in a paint retail store as salesperson. People know me personally, but I still was old and inconvenient for them. I never tried to find the reasons! It's not my problem. It's theirs! They lost a good colourist and knowledgeable about what to sell for what.

Finally, I get the position because the previous people made too many mistakes with colours and created unsellable paints.

With good colour production, good suggestion what to apply and how to use it, give the store increase of sales, I add my architects to the customer list. Oh! I forget! The store owner offered $25,000/year salary that was accepted by me. Salary plus pension, it was fine, and get experience with retail business. This was the learning process for me!

If you don't find a good job, and if you have knowledge in one industry, start to do something by yourself. It's a suggestion to eliminate the headaches you have actually.

All the best, Gil.

It's the older guys who have designed the systems, built the equipment and maintained it. The little sh*ts won't recognise that 'older' workers are capable of any of this. Yes, it may be better to set-up your own business, even if it's in eCommerce, but who has the money and contacts for you to be successful? I can't afford to lose any money - I have p. all in retirement accounts now !!

There is one thing I haven't heard mentioned.

The new bosses are in their 30's. As far as they're concerned, we, (50 plus), have created every problem that there is in the world today.

Why bother hiring the very people that have spent a lifetime contributing to the problems. This is not my view, but if you think about it, this is generational discrimination, not necessarily age discrimination.

The worst part.............I can't come up with a valid argument to prove them wrong.

Kramarat -- You're right on this one.

Another factor is the difficulty older workers have keeping up consistent 60 hour workweeks like younger workers, the sweetest part of which is the 20 hours of free labor the employers can get under most current state labor laws.

Yet another is that too many older workers don't know when to stop acting like a threat to their young bosses or challenge their technical knowledge.

Then there is the cost of group medical plans which depend a lot on the employe demographics.

And don't forget that fast quarterly paybacks that are what equity owners and managers are looking for are helped more by cost and project lead time reductions from less capable workers putting in more hours than by long term savings from a better engineering effort.

Sorry for the cynical viewpoint; but we live in an era of "what did you do for my bottom line this week?"

Ed Weldon

Yep.....the old bait and switch.

Bait them in with a salary based on a 40 hour work week....once they're in, start piling on the extra hours. That's become so commonplace that it's become the norm.

I guess we should also mention the growing practice of hiring people as independent contractors...........No benefits, no health insurance, no overtime pay.......and....oh yeah, don't forget to pay your quarterly taxes.

Exactly this is a common hiring practice by companies amongst younger personnel, then once in they promise growth and promotion for the extra efforts. Currently, most company HR buy into the idea that it is just expected that any new employee will quit within about 3 to 5 years, and that most younger employees will have in excess of 13 different employers over their working careers, and this number is constantly growing. They actually figure to only retain newer staff for a few years. (This differs from 50+ staff who have very little experience with job transitions even though they do seem to complain much more frequently about the threat on their horizon, most older employees have had only about 5 employers in their lifetimes.)

I was working for another huge engineering firm, and the corporate executive for HR actually sent out a email about the problems with retention of younger professional staff after they would get licensure completed. He had indicated that while they expected a high loss rate on these personnel for a list of reasons including simply working conditions and expectations, the loss rate they had was unsustainable as they started to accrue more principal staff than entry level licensed professionals, thus making them uncompetitive on low bidder proposals. They had been using a lot of subconsultants staff to fill these gaps, and this meant a loss of revenue to subconsultants and a need to reduce mark-ups on subconsultant fees to remain competive in a tighter market. and so on and so forth. In the end he indicated they needed to change policies to retain professional staff and remain competitive on projects.

Two main issues I recall that were discussed in subsequent correspondence were the principals expectations for working hours for staff, younger staff was just assumed to be able to work 60 hours weeks for minimal pay, and fill in for admin staff or non-exempt staff as neede to keep them from going into overtime, as non-exempt staff cost more then exempt staff if they go into overtime. Obviously most companies use the laws to allow for unpaid overtime, and there have been some lawsuits pending over use of exempt staff for non-technical labor without paying overtime. Since these companies pay by the hour any ways, if a exempt employee works less than 40 hours in a week they get paid only for the hours they work at an hourly wage, if they work over 40 they may not get paid or get paid a straight time rate (thus making them cheaper for non-professional work that demeands overtime than non-exempt laborers/technicians), maybe the law should not make a distinction between the labor force except for executive staff in a company.

Maybe everyone should be paid for the hours they work and receive overtime. As it stands now anyways, because of professional licensure and certification policies, entry level junior professionals get paid less starting out than younger admin staff simply because they have to bargain for working experience for their licensure/certifications. Maybe there needs to be more general accountability on employers. Similarly with older, higher paid "principal" employees, many have not designed or practiced in the field in decades, have only worked for this same company for the last 25 years and lack any breadth of experience,do not stay current with advancements in tehnologies in their industry as they have no perceived impetus in what they perceive as a secure position, and thus can not develop a proper design. They have spent most of their time looking for new projects, sales, networking, reviewing financials, and general management related paperwork.

In some sense it is frequently better to have many younger personnel and a plan to grow them with a few highly qualifed older personnel, then to have a lot of expensive older personnel who still have the old 1970s concept of employers duty to they employee of life time employement and benefits for average workmanship. (You know the Teacher's and Auto Union's concept of employment.)

"In some sense it is frequently better to have many younger personnel and a plan to grow them with a few highly qualifed older personnel, then to have a lot of expensive older personnel who still have the old 1970s concept of employers duty to they employee of life time employement and benefits for average workmanship. (You know the Teacher's and Auto Union's concept of employment.)"

In what "sense"?

What do you mean by "average workmanship"?

average workmanship, spend the at least same time as it takes others on average to create something that doesn't exceed the expected average quality or workmanship with the expectation that as long as they receive average or better pay and benefits for someone their age in their field, or other fields they tether themselves to for wage comparison but not labor effort comparisons. You know the public services employees unions and auto unions ideal model for labor, do just enough not to get fired and keep that job for a life time, while expecting the newer employees to pick up any extra slack without making waves that reflect your own performance. (Actually it should probably be that they are shooting to just make it above the bottom 20 percentile, but as numerous people in the field aim there it becomes average.)

Good answer, RCE. Your third paragraph about free labor from "exempt" employees hit the nail right on the head.

200 years ago a big piece of the GNP was "contributed" by apprentices, slaves, indentured servants and don't forget wives. Employers only had to reward them with enough to fill their bellies and give them a place to sleep out of the rain and snow.

Fast forward to today and all that's changed is the name we use to describe them: "Exempt employees".

Give them enough to buy the two basics above plus some cheap entertainment to fill whatever hours are left to them in a week and pay off atrocious student loans. And feed them with ego food packaged as "career development". Then throw them on the trash pile when age starts making them inefficient. Sadly, that now includes the women who in past times were protected in their old age by societal norms.

Ed Weldon

Just a guess, but it seems to me to be like the lifeboat mentality that is ruling things now. I think this has been coming for a long time. Ever since the NAFTA agreements with Mexico and the wholesale shipping of jobs overseas. THIS IS WHAT'S LEFT OVER!

The older workers get to draw straws to see who gets to go for a swim. However, this is no different than it ever was, we are all just living closer to the ground now.

There are 2.5 dollars overseas for every dollar that lives in the USA. Doesn't that sound like the tail wagging the dog?

Why hire older workers when you can get it done overseas for pennies on the dollar. I have watched my company unbolt most of the equipment on the manufacturing floor, crate it up and send it overseas, to cheap labor. That is where the jobs are going. We need to put an end to free trade agreement - it is one sided. We have exported our labor to places like China, we are now paying them for the products we "make'-instead of our own workers- and then as customers buying the products from the very people that are taking our jobs and money, twice, once to have it produced by foreign labor and then buy it back from them as customers. That cheaper price that you pay at the 'Big Box" stores, produced by foreign countries, is costing us our jobs and all our money is going over seas.

I knew I was in for it when "Personnel Department" became "Human Resources Department".

Age discrimination? I had an interview that went smoothly along until I was asked what I thought of the playoff basketball tournament outcome and I made the fatal mistake of replying that I "wasn't much into sports". Also, I forgot to wear a ball-cap backwards and use the words "dude" and "awesome". I should have realized these details are important in the operation of a chemical plant.

Excellent observation but all too true.

However, being a nerd doesn't really have anything to do with age. Plus a good HR manager would have responded just the opposite assuming he was so nerdy that he had no life outside of work and really only understand unit operations and nothing else. That is an ideal candidate, no competition for managers, will remain in the same role forever for relatively little pay increases, as he lacks both the diversity of technical skills to readily advance positions (potentially endangering other more senior members positions) and the people skills to self market. He would make an excellent grunt.

Amazing, this is exactly what I had in my resumé!

Thank you,

Mr. Grunt

Some of the Humanoid Resource persons responsible for preliminary screening are limited in their conceptual view of reality.

When asked if you are familiar, for example with hydraulic motors, do not rattle off brands of hydraulic motors, as the possibility that the organization does not use any of the four particular brands you mentioned, but some other brand. It will not occur as even the slightest glimmer of brain function, that you are adept at compensating for varaiation in design.

The above applies to all ages.

There have been lots of postings about how sh**ty it is "out there".

If anyone is interested in being part of a VERY dynamic company the will be "changing the world" by cutting utility usage and costs by 50% to 70%

and cutting environmental releases by 60% to over 90%

WHILE you stay based in your current home town (unless, of course, you WANT to move to Cincinnati, OH, which would be cool as well)

send me a message for follow-up. As stated earlier- we are looking for "seasoned" engineers, particularly facility engineers, with a broad background in building utility systems operation.

We use a 6-Sigma methodology to upgrade SYSTEMS, not just replace machinery that starts to wear out as soon as it starts working.

We are also developing new utility system machinery that achieves the same energy and environmental savings results so some of you "other guys" can contact me as well.

When we start manufacturing, we will be occupying auto plants that have been shut down and hiring the folks that used to work there who got screwed by a management team who didn't have a clue on how to REALLY run a business in a competitive market.

This is your chance- I am waiting to hear from you. Some of your comrades-at- arms have already contacted me.