Ageism is still alive and well

Monday, 16 January 2012

by Martin Lloyd-Penny - MD of matureaccountants.com

Picture this and see if it resonates. You had a decent education, worked really hard and obtained a good degree, maybe followed by a professional qualification. You climbed the career ladder and learnt a lot from your mistakes along the way.

You brought up a family and at the age of 50-something the kids are off your hands and you can start to indulge yourself and enjoy the fruits of your labour.

And then something happens which changes everything – you lose your job, often through no fault of your own, but you have a great CV and loads of experience and you are still young at heart.

But then reality kicks in; you are the wrong side of 49 and you are “over the hill”. Suddenly you are faced with the scrap-heap challenge and the world looks like a very different place.

Why are all those recruitment consultants half your age, in fact the same age as your kids, and why do they always seem to glaze over when you tell them about your experience and what an asset you would be to any employer.

Job applications are never acknowledged, the phone doesn’t ring and £68 a week on job-seekers allowance isn’t going to pay the bills. Job Centre Plus feels like abject humiliation and you wonder where the “Plus” came from!

And then you start to realise that the chances of getting back on the career ladder at the same level as before start to recede by the day. After 3 months it’s tough, but see how it feels after a year. How do you manage to keep body and soul together let alone family life? 

Of course retirement is still a long way off, assuming that you have been lucky enough to be part of a pension scheme that will allow you to retire one day. Reality is that apart from the minority we are all destined to retire into relative poverty and most of us will be hoping that the equity in the house will provide for us in old age. But you need a job today so what do you do?

This scenario confronted me in 2005. I was out of work for a year. Good CV, just over 50 and being out of work was not a good combination! Then one day as things were getting pretty desperate I had a bright idea and www.matureaccountants.com was born.

Since then I have found work for over 250 “mature” accountants including jobs all over the world. As I always say to potential employers it’s all about experience and not age.

Ageism is alive and well but the reality is there are thousands of companies out there who need people with grey hair (or in my case no hair!) especially in the current economic crisis.

These candidates add value on day one, they don’t need training or supervision and they hit the ground running. We have an ageing population which needs to keep working. 60 is the new 40. Employers wake up and embrace the fantastic resource that is on your door-step.

We are all in this together.