Despite laws in place, temp agencies STILL discriminate against older workers

[Watercolors]

Yes, there is the EEOC and the ADEA in place to prevent age discrimination in the work force, but I'm living proof as a contractor that I'm constantly discriminated against by recruiters in temp agencies, who hide behind the lie, "the client only wants a job candidate with work experience that's not older than 2-3 years." It is a lie, because these "clients" don't know how old the temp is, whose resume they've received for consideration.

 

I'm frustrated because my age is impeding my job search -- mostly with temp agencies and recruiters who won't submit me for jobs because I'm over 40 years old, then backtrack to protect themselves legally, by blaming their 3rd party client as the one who wants someone with more current job experience.

 

This is ridiculous.

 

Job experience doesn't expire. And recruiters have perpetuated this lie to discriminate against over-40 job seekers like myself, since I started temping off/on ten years ago.

 

I'm not looking for judgment or criticism about my attitude of dealing with younger employers or younger coworkers as I've addressed that in my other thread. This thread is about a legitimate problem for job seekers over-40 like myself. If you've never been in my shoes, then you don't know how stressful it is to have relevant work experience that is older than 5 years.

 

Other than reformatting my resume from chronological to functional, am I supposed to omit the dates of my employment on my resume when I submit it for jobs? I'm at a loss here.

 

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) is a federal law that forbids discrimination against job applicants and employees 40 years old and older on the basis of age. ADEA protection covers hiring, training, benefits, compensation, promotion, firing, layoffs, and other terms and privileges of employment.

 

Age discrimination involves treating an applicant or employee less favorably because of his or her age.

 

PROHIBITION OF AGE DISCRIMINATION

SEC. 623. [section 4]

 

(a) Employer practices

 

It shall be unlawful for an employer-

 

(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s age;

 

(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s age; or

 

(b) It shall be unlawful for an employment agency to fail or refuse to refer for employment, or other*wise to discriminate against, any individual because of such individual’s age, or to classify or refer for employment any individual on the basis of such individual’s age.

[/b]

 

and...

 

Employment Discrimination laws seek to prevent discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, physical disability, and age by employers. Discriminatory practices include bias in hiring, promotion, job assignment, termination, compensation, retaliation, and various types of harassment.

[Happy Lemming]

...It is a lie...

 

So you lie on your resume'... Fudge the dates, etc.

 

If you haven't worked in 6 months (in your field), your resume' will end up in the trash.

 

About 20 years ago, I took some time off and didn't work for almost a year. I had saved up some money, quit my job and went on a little journey (something similar to a "walkabout").

 

When it came time to go back to work, I "fudged" my resume' A buddy of mine owned a small telemarketing/insurance sales company. I put on my resume that I was his accountant/IT guy. When potential employers called him for a reference, he made me out to be the best thing since sliced bread and I got re-employed.

[Watercolors]

So you lie on your resume'... Fudge the dates, etc.

 

If you haven't worked in 6 months (in your field), your resume' will end up in the trash.

 

About 20 years ago, I took some time off and didn't work for almost a year. I had saved up some money, quit my job and went on a little journey (something similar to a "walkabout").

 

When it came time to go back to work, I "fudged" my resume' A buddy of mine owned a small telemarketing/insurance sales company. I put on my resume that I was his accountant/IT guy. When potential employers called him for a reference, he made me out to be the best thing since sliced bread and I got re-employed.

 

Good idea in theory, but in practice? I'm not so sure. Because I'll be found out when the prospective employer asks to call them for a reference.

[Mr. Lucky]

This thread is about a legitimate problem for job seekers over-40 like myself.

 

Certainly agree age discrimination is a real issue, just as is discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc.

 

But I'd guess many people like yourself, working for a 3rd party, are in a difficult situation that the law needs to catch up with. This rise of the "Gig Economy" has created a layer between you and the employer, in the traditional sense.

 

Age discrimination involves treating an applicant or employee less favorably because of his or her age.

 

You're not an "applicant or employee" of the company that eventually contracts for your services. So is your concern regarding your employer, the temp agency itself?

 

Mr. Lucky

[RecentChange]

A while back we were looking for office help and went through a temp agency.

 

After a few flops, we absolutely did require that the candidate have current job experience in our field.

 

Age didn't matter, this is a mostly older industry, the man we did end up hiring (not through the agency, in the end they didn't send us any good candidates) is 15 years my Sr - but he has current experience (recruited him from a competitor).

 

In our situation - the issue was technology changes so fast - even things as simple as Outlook keep changing, and we found that people who has been out of the loop for a few years really struggled.

 

You mention a young job force, not sure what industries you are looking at, but if find law and insurance tend to have a more mature work force.

[Happy Lemming]

Because I'll be found out when the prospective employer asks to call them for a reference.

 

Unless you can get your reference to go along, it won't work.

 

In my case, my buddy owned the company, so he could "parrot" anything I asked him to.

 

Do you know anyone who owns their own company and would assist you?

[Art_Critic]

Good idea in theory, but in practice? I'm not so sure. Because I'll be found out when the prospective employer asks to call them for a reference.

 

 

or they google you ..many of the pages that people pull you up under have your age.

 

 

They also can just get an idea looking at your resume...

[Happy Lemming]

or they google you

 

Yes, a lot of companies say they background check you, etc. but they don't.

 

I had one employer tell me they were going to background check me prior to hiring. I knew that was going to be a problem, as I had changed my name. I was fully expecting having to explain why I had done it and produce the court documents for the name change and my previous name. But no... they never asked. I was hired and worked for them for 3 years. During my exit interview, I told them that they had never background checked me because they didn't ask about my alias.

[d0nnivain]

Watercolors

 

Do both. Take the dates off your chronological resume AND have a different functional resume you can also submit.

 

Age discrimination is real but unless you are prepared to sue to fight for your rights, take these simpler steps to combat it.

 

One of my BFFs is going through a similar frustration. She isn't getting interviews & when she does get interviews they tell her she's over qualified or they hire younger candidates. She has taken to discounting her salary requirements but so far that is not helping.

 

Can you turn your skill set into a business & pick up work on a contract basis through task rabbit or other similar site? that doesn't get you benefits or other perks so I know it's not ideal

[Art_Critic]

Watercolors

 

Do both. Take the dates off your chronological resume AND have a different functional resume you can also submit.

 

Age discrimination is real but unless you are prepared to sue to fight for your rights, take these simpler steps to combat it.

 

In the end though all that will do is get them into a face to face interview which will then be obvious why they didn't have the dates on their resume.

 

It is a real issue, I think someone close to 50 is almost never going to get called in unless their experience is the only thing that matters but in reality most companies don't want to hire someone who might be retiring in a few years.

That is the issue I had with the last position here I filled was all the applicants were older than I was which I couldn't imagine hiring someone older than me since I understand how hard it is and I'm hiring for the future 10 years.

One guy shuffled into the interview and it was oblivious something was up with his back, feet and knees.. I made up my mind in 20 secs as there was no way I was putting him in a lift to go up 3 stories and handing him half of a heavy display.

I did wound up finding someone younger, 24.. of course even younger has it's issues.

 

 

About the only thing the OP can do besides removing dates is make sure she is physically up to the job she is applying for since her age seems to already be an issue.

 

If I had found someone maybe 45-50 that could have done the job I would have hired them since 10 years is all I'm looking for.

 

The amount of money and time I have to put in a job position for training is huge and if they retire or stay home to take care of grand kids after 2 years that is what would have sucked.. hence why I hire younger.

[vla1120]

I'm having a problem myself with job hunting. I have a good job, but with budget cuts, who knows whether my job will be here in one year, or two years. I have 40 years of experience. I'm 4 years away from my full pension with benefits retirement (started this pension job only 20 years ago.) No one wants to hire me at my salary level when they can get someone younger and cheaper. If things get desperate enough, I'll have to take a pretty severe pay cut. It doesn't help that I am in a male-dominated field. So take your pick, gender discrimination, age discrimination, luckily I can always retire in November 2020 and just get another job with health benefits until Medicare kicks in.

[preraph]

There is no doubt age discrimination. Things may be getting some better, but it's always been true that if your boss is male, he wants to hire hot young women if he can.

 

But it's also true that the thinking about experience and a way they justify age discrimination is to call experienced people "set in their ways and inflexible," so this is a genuine motif in the hiring business. Underlying that is they don't want to have to PAY for experience, and it's been that way since the 1980s and Reaganomics, when longevity in employment and getting steady raises went out the window. They want to pay as little as they can and get someone trainable and preferably young and attractive and keep them until they age out or make too much money.

 

I have a friend who got fired at 50. She'd been with the company over a decade. It was a miserable job (she's resistant to change in general so she just stays for no reason). It was such a bad job that she was forced to spend her lunch hour, along with the other employees, in the break room attending her boss's prayer session. Completely illegal.

 

Anyway, they ended up firing her because she was making more money than most underlings having been there so long. Just told her they couldn't afford her anymore (and she wasn't even making good money -- this was a crap job.)

[schlumpy]

I'm afraid my wife lost her job due to age discrimination. The university did a house cleaning and everyone who went out the door was over 55. It seemed obvious to me.

 

They sweetened the layoff by giving everyone six months severance pay but many of these ladies lost out on pension benefits because they were short a few years.

 

After hearing the liberal mantra of how the University is fighting for the little guy this was the result.

 

There is what they say and then there is what they do.

 

Be prepared.

[Watercolors]

A while back we were looking for office help and went through a temp agency.

 

After a few flops, we absolutely did require that the candidate have current job experience in our field.

 

Age didn't matter, this is a mostly older industry, the man we did end up hiring (not through the agency, in the end they didn't send us any good candidates) is 15 years my Sr - but he has current experience (recruited him from a competitor).

 

In our situation - the issue was technology changes so fast - even things as simple as Outlook keep changing, and we found that people who has been out of the loop for a few years really struggled.

 

You mention a young job force, not sure what industries you are looking at, but if find law and insurance tend to have a more mature work force.

 

RecentChange, not to sound harsh but you just admitted to age bias in your response. What if you'd seen my resume and I had the *exact* skills you needed but my work experience was older than 3 years. What you write in your post is that no, you would not hire me. That, is age discrimination.

 

Technology changes but that doesn't mean we GenXers aren't capable of taking online tutorials, classes, or workshops. And, most companies PAY their employees (new and established) to attend professional development (technology, manager training, etc.) 1 day to 1 week courses taught a corporate trainer.

Edited November 26, 2019 by Watercolors

[Watercolors]

@Happy Lemming and Art Critic:

 

Yeah, I've learned that recruiters will log into their own Facebook accounts, type in your name, and read through all of your public comments on your friends threads, even if you make your FB account private.

 

Also, Google doesn't scrub your information -- it's there for all eternity. Even if you delete it, it can easily be retrieved.

 

I am definitely concerned because the FB thing is totally discriminatory and unethical. Although, since I am not dressed scantily clad in any of my own FB photos, nor do I post racy comments recruiters will just read boring posts by me with the occasional sarcastic remark. It's annoying that recruiters and hiring managers will do this. But who's going to stop them?

 

I don't know anyone who would "fake" it, like George Costanza did in that Seinfeld episode where h lied to his unemployment office (to get out of going to his mandatory re-employment orientation) that he couldn't stay because he had an interview scheduled with his fake company

for a latex salesman job. That would be helpful, but unfortuantely none of the people I know are that considerate.

 

I did cancel my re-employment orientation for this morning as I told the voicemail yesterday that I have a temp job (not with Vandelay Industries) and need to reschedule. The old lady who called me back, was going to exempt me until I accidentally offended her telling her she called me at my temp job, which is answering phones and I had to end her long winded interrogation of my temp job (she got mad and said "I'll reschedule you b/c you're being rude and hanging up on me" she must be around 70 or 80).

Edited November 26, 2019 by Watercolors

[carhill]

I wonder if employers discriminate against older workers they can't background check on social media

OP, I sympathize. I'm in my 60's and saw the corporate BS decades ago so went out on my own to fight the battles of life. Life is adversarial. Lots of enemies out there. Employers/employees/customers/vendors aren't our friends. It's all about the love of money and power and who wins. The reality of human existence. Yeah, I know the slickest among us butter it up with nice words but reality is reality.

 

 

 

Expect discrimination, expect bias, expect illegal acts because, well, the law is for sale to the highest bidder and always open to 'interpretation'. You win some you lose some. Good luck in your battles!

[Watercolors]

@d0nnovain speaking of suing, I sent an email to a branch manager at the temp agency where her I caught her recruiter in a lie to me, about not really submitting me for a role like she claimed she did, by giving her evidence from my phone conversation with the hiring manager who called me for a phone interview, with the company the recruiter claims she contacted but never did.

 

In my email, I cited that prohibition of age discrimination bit, which may have been over-the-top but I'm so fed up with the way recruiters and temp agencies discriminate against their over-40 contractors, that I felt I had nothing to lose.

 

The temp agency branch manager responded in an email to me that I can't hold her temp agency responsible when their clients want someone with more recent job experience.

 

Task rabbit seems like its more for putting furniture together etc. and that's not my thing. I've been working on my online profile on some global platform websites for freelancers to try to get myself out there to do remote/virtual administrative support work but so far, no responses to the bids I've sent out to prospective clients. I'll keep at it though. What choice do I have?

 

Like your friend, I'm constantly discriminated against, told by younger recruiters that I'm over qualified or younger candidates get interviews in person.

 

Like, I applied at a local university for an admin role where I actually KNOW 2 of the faculty. I even told the faculty I was applying and they were happy and said they'd act as references for me.

 

So, you can imagine my surprise yesterday, when the recruiter at the university (in the h.r. dept. recruiters are like roaches now -- they're everywhere and you can't get rid of them, they lie like the sleazy car salesmen they really are) told me point blank on the phone after I badgered her and broke her spirit with my questioning, "You are too old. We are interviewing younger candidates." Didn't matter that I had the job experience and knew 2 of the faculty.

 

That's why recruiters disgust me. That's why hiring managers aggravate me.

 

I am 48 not 68. I have 20 years of work left in me. And I'll be damned if some 25 year old recruiter who is a dumb as rocks, is going to stand in my way of finding a fulfilling job.

 

And to employers who misdirect yet really practice age bias with their hiring, "they're older then me but they have more recent job experience" (hello, that's still discrimination, no matter what color crayon you use), I will need to find a creative way to get my resume noticed, short of creating a tv series where the fictional characters pretend to be unemployed looking for a job.

So I responded that she's still participating in age-discrimination by not presenting candidates like me who have the exact same job experience as younger candidates. We went back and forth and I finally asked her if she was going to make an effort to find me direct hire work despite her recruiter's blatant lying, and she said she would. But, I'm not holding my breath.

[Watercolors]

Thanks carhill. HA!! I wish I had never joined FB or posted anything of personal information line. Maybe I'd have a full-time job by now!

 

I just offered water to a -- guess how old -- job applicant who the hr lady here is interviewing for the front desk job I'm temping in. I'm horrified and want to just leave the building right now.

[Watercolors]

I'm having a problem myself with job hunting. I have a good job, but with budget cuts, who knows whether my job will be here in one year, or two years. I have 40 years of experience. I'm 4 years away from my full pension with benefits retirement (started this pension job only 20 years ago.) No one wants to hire me at my salary level when they can get someone younger and cheaper. If things get desperate enough, I'll have to take a pretty severe pay cut. It doesn't help that I am in a male-dominated field. So take your pick, gender discrimination, age discrimination, luckily I can always retire in November 2020 and just get another job with health benefits until Medicare kicks in.

 

Well, you're not exactly in desperate financial straits like I am. You have a long established career of 40 years. I don't have that. You can still retire and not worry about your finances like I will. I don't have a spouse.

 

I don't have a 401K, or an IRA, life insurance, or anything solid financially to help me. If I live long enough, I'll become one of those old people who greets customers at Walmart, and then goes home to a cardboard box paid for by whatever social security I have left which already is pennies on the dollar.

 

That, or move to Florida when I'm old and wrinkly and try to find roommates my age a la The Golden Girls. But that's a tv show.

[Watercolors]

@ preraph,

 

Sorry to hear that your friend got fired at age 50. Even though she hated her job. I feel like there's a lot of people in the workforce who despise their jobs, but keep them for the health benefits, pension and financial income.

 

I agree with you that male bosses definitely hire younger women and justify age discrimination by accusing workers over 40 as being inflexible and unable to learn new tasks, which is just a load of hogwash.

 

@schlumpy, wow, sorry to hear that your wife's university edged her out due to her age. But, since both of my parents worked in higher academia, it's not a foreign concept to me, the way higher education institutions "clean house" by laying off their staff and faculty over-40.

 

I already am experiencing age discrimination, so I am prepared. It's terrible though.

 

I am going to leave off dates on my resume leave off my graduation dates and see what happens. But they'll find out I'm 48 if I get interviewed and offered a job. They could easily rescind the job offer once they find out my real age. That's happened to me before.

 

I think I will focus my energy on getting virtual administrative support work.

[Mr. Lucky]

In my email, I cited that prohibition of age discrimination bit, which may have been over-the-top but I'm so fed up with the way recruiters and temp agencies discriminate against their over-40 contractors, that I felt I had nothing to lose.

 

The temp agency branch manager responded in an email to me that I can't hold her temp agency responsible when their clients want someone with more recent job experience.

 

How is wanting "someone with more recent job experience" an example of age discrimination?

 

My wife was out of the workforce for almost a decade starting in her late 20's, and "recent experience" was an issue for her when she went back to work.

 

Not sure it's age specific...

 

Mr. Lucky

[vla1120]

I'm afraid my wife lost her job due to age discrimination. The university did a house cleaning and everyone who went out the door was over 55. It seemed obvious to me.

 

They sweetened the layoff by giving everyone six months severance pay but many of these ladies lost out on pension benefits because they were short a few years.

 

After hearing the liberal mantra of how the University is fighting for the little guy this was the result.

 

There is what they say and then there is what they do.

 

Be prepared.

 

This is EXACTLY what I am afraid is going to happen to me! Unfortunately, I won't get any severance package, just a swift boot out the door. I can retire in one year and collect my pension. I just won't have full health benefits. I need another 3.5 years for that. Luckily, even if they do fire me, I can still collect my pension when I am 60 (next November.)