Sound familiar?
Are you not inviting someone to an interview because they are too old or too young for the job?
What is the reason for that?
This is due to age discrimination
Ageism refers to age-related prejudice and discrimination. Ageism is just as institutionalized as racism and sexism, although it is rarely discussed. For example, it is well researched that we assign certain stereotypes to certain age groups (Chan et al., 2012).
As a result, younger people are regarded as more undisciplined and older people as less open to new things. Because of this generalization, people can be discriminated against on the basis of age, even though their individual strengths would have been a good fit for the job.
Women and people of color are even more likely to be discriminated against because of their age.
Sources
- Chan, W., McCrae, R.R., De Fruyt, F., Jussim, L., Löckenhoff, C.E., De Bolle, M., Costa, P.T., Jr., Sutin, A.R., Realo, A., Allik, J., Nakazato, K., Shimonaka, Y., Hřebíčková, M., Graf, S., Yik, M., Brunner-Scic M., de Figueroa, N.L., Schmidt, V., Ahn, C.-K. Terracciano, A. (2012). Stereotypes of age differences in personality traits: Universal and accurate? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103 (6), 1050-1066.
- Cole, E., & Hollis-Sawyer, L. (2021). Older Women Who Work: Resilience, Choice, and Change. In JSTOR. American Psychological Association.
How structured pre-selection helps avoid this distortion is shown by Aivy's assessment procedures.
This effect is one of 17 patterns that shape hiring decisions. The overview is in Unconscious Bias in Recruiting.
Make a better pre-selection — even before the first interview
In just a few minutes, Aivy shows you which candidates really fit the role. Beyond resumes based on strengths.
