Most mature aged job seekers dissatisfied with recruiters

    by: By Sarah Michael
    From: news.com.au
    November 13, 2012


More than three quarters of mature aged job seekers refuse to put their age on their CV.

    88 per cent of mature job seekers unhappy with recruiters
    "Once you are past 45, no one wants to know you"    


ALMOST nine out of 10 job seekers aged over 45 say they are treated badly by recruiters.    

A survey by Adage.com.au, a job site for the mature aged, has found 88 per cent are dissatisfied with the level of response received from recruiters and a further 77 per cent are dissatisfied with the response of employers.    

Adage.com.au managing director Heidi Holmes said mature-age workers have it "extremely tough" in Australia.

"Once you are past 45, no one wants to know you," Ms Holmes said.    

"It’s incredible to me that there is so much discussion about skills shortages in Australia, while so many highly qualified and experienced workers are being overlooked simply because they’ve got a bit of grey hair."

The survey of more than 800 job seekers also found 78 per cent refused to put their age on their CV.


Ms Holmes said many do this because they are scared their age will disadvantage them.

"We aren't talking about 'seniors' here," she said, adding that one third of the respondents surveyed were under the age of 55.

"Many of these workers are in their 40s," she said. "For some, that's more than 20 years until the official retirement age."

Peter, 52, worked in marketing for a company for 16 years before it shut the Australian operation and he was made redundant in 2010.

"Pretty much since then I’ve been looking for a job," he said.

He has put in almost 400 job applications in that time, but they have only translated to six direct interviews with a company.    

"Most of the feedback I’ve got is that I have a terrific resume, fantastic achievements, I gave a great interview but ‘we’re looking for someone who can grow into the role’," he said.

"Or ‘we think you’re too senior, you’ll be dissatisfied, the work is beneath you, you’ll get bored’."

Peter said he thinks recruitment agencies don’t do enough to engage managers in discussions about the type of candidates they need.

"Most [recruiters] are lazy and they’re cowards - I have been told by recruiters that they give resumes a 10 second glance and that’s it," he said.

He said he gets frustrated by the fact that recruiters often think he is too old to adopt new technology.

"If you want to know anything about the Twitterverse or Facebook or social media I’m across it," he said.

Ms Holmes said in the last few years there had been a large focus on Gen Y in recruiting.

"That has fed not only the focus around youth, but potentially leads to an unconscious bias," she said.

"There’s this immediate assumption [mature workers] are not engaged online, or they don’t know what’s happening in the digital space."

Simon Schweigert, project manager at the Recruitment and Consulting Services Association, said there was "a reasonable degree of lack of understanding" of the value of mature age workers among recruiters.

"In a large majority of cases that is probably unconscious rather than an employer specifically discriminating against a mature age candidate," Mr Schweigert said.

Mr Schweigert said there has been a lot of research that has shown there is a disconnect between mature age candidates and young recruiters.

The RCSA, which represents more than half of the mainstream recruitment agencies in Australia, runs workshops to teach its members how to work with mature age candidates.

"A large number of mature aged candidates have never used a recruitment agency before," Mr Schweigert said.

"What the recruiter then ends up doing is educating them about how the process works and walking them through that, as well as trying to find the right role for them."

He added all member agencies were governed by a code of professional conduct.

"They must be meeting all requirements legal and moral, and their conduct should be fair and balanced and even," Mr Schweigert said.

Any individuals who think may be have been treated incorrectly can make a complaint through the RSCA, he said.

I think there is far greater issues, and its population growth.

Farms are getting bigger machinery and using less people, manufacturing is either going more high tech or closing and retail is being raped by the online world.

Couple that with population growth and sooner or later we will have to realise that employers will be flushed for choice because there isnt enough jobs to go around.

I dont think a lot can be done until the underlying issues are resolved.

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But only if you're a woman. 

skills shortage though, dont forget about it.

but yeah i strongly recommend lying on your resume. i lie about everythingm, i even created fake documents of recommendation to help me get jobs. lie about your age, lie about everything. p make up fake jobs and give the phone numbers to the refererees from these jobs to friends and tell them what to say if they get called. this is the only way to fight back against picky employer bullsh1t. if they want to screw us, we need to start playing dirty ourselves to stay in the game.

Kat wrote on Nov 13^th, 2012 at 3:56pm:



fair enough. 
You're 55 and thinking this, but I tell ya what - this is the attitude that's growing among people much younger than you.  The ones who are supposed to bear the burden of supporting the system the boomers created to provide for themselves, while selling future generations into slavery.  And i for one welcome it.  We are being progressively stripped of all incentives to perform.  "for the good of society" isn't enough anymore - bugger society, we'll go our own way.

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that's right. what they see is what they get.and what they see in my case, and in the case of many other people - is a bunch of fabrications helping me to get a job. it works.

You do know me bobby.   How are you?.