Addressing Implicit Age Discrimination in Your Job Search Activities

My article, Addressing Implicit Age Discrimination in Your Job Search Activities, was just published in Intercom, the magazine of the Society for Technical Communication. Following is an excerpt.

When the mass media stresses youth (most television networks prefer their viewers between 18 and 49, or, even better, no older than 35), professional magazines talk about the technological agility of younger workers, and the general business press openly talks about the high expense of experienced workers, those of us who have a bit of experience and the gray hair to prove it have good reason to be concerned about age discrimination in our job searches.

Indeed, despite anti-discrimination laws in most countries and corporate statements guaranteeing equal opportunity, age discrimination does exist in the workplace. If you’re un- or underemployed, cosmetic surgery and Botox treatments probably aren’t viable options for covering your age.

So what can you do? This article—an update of my 2003 Intercom article on the same subject—offers five suggestions.

(To continue reading, visit http://www.stc.org/intercom/PDFs/2009/20090910_04-07.pdf. You need to be an STC member to see the article.)