Candidates should be seen as individuals, not stereotypes

2014 was the strongest year for job growth since 1999, with the U.S. economy gaining an average of 224,000 jobs a month. While this momentum has carried through into 2015 and the unemployment rate continues to descend, one group of job seekers has been left out in the cold: baby boomers.
Baby boomers represent 31 percent of the U.S. workforce, yet millions of them are still struggling to land a job. When hundreds of thousands of people are getting hired every month, why are baby boomers being pushed aside?
Beyond recently conducted a national survey of 4,000 job seekers and found that 49 percent of baby boomer respondents felt the biggest reason they couldn’t find work was because they were perceived as being “too old.”
As reported on by career experts, including Liz Ryan, CEO and founder of Human Workplace, this is a prevalent issue and employers need to face it head-on.
The fallacies of stereotypes
Knowingly using stereotypes to evaluate potential candidates is a horrible idea. Not only do these labels put people in boxes, they also limit our perception of their capabilities and potential for success. Moreover, it’s been shown that these generational stereotypes don’t hold up.
A 2014 peer-reviewed study by researchers at the University of Southern Mississippi and Auburn University compared 8,000 professionals to see if commonly held stereotypes about these generations (i.e., baby boomers, generation X and millennials) made them more difficult to manage in the workplace. What this study found is that the differences between each group are marginal.
In addition to not being any more difficult to manage than millennials or gen Xers in the workplace, baby boomers have a longer shelf life than hiring managers think.
According to a 2014 Gallup poll, nearly 50 percent of Baby Boomers don’t expect to retire until they are 66 or older, and one in 10 predict they will never retire. Considering that millennials tend to get a new job every couple years and it can cost a company between $15,000 and $25,000 to replace them, the cost of hiring a baby boomer is often outweighed by lower turnover.
Asking the right questions
Rather than excluding a job applicant based on generational stereotypes, look at the person’s resume and ask yourself these three questions:

  1. Does this person have the necessary academic requirements for this position?
  2. Does he or she have skills that are applicable to the job we’re hiring for?
  3. Does this individual have enough relevant experience so they can hit the ground running?

Regardless of age, every time you hire someone you are taking a risk. It can be very easy to generalize and make assumptions about a candidate based on a stereotype, but we are better than that.

If you’re able to answer “yes” to all of the above questions after reviewing a person’s resume, give them the benefit of the doubt and interview them. For all you know, they might be the perfect fit.

 
Rich Milgram is the CEO of Beyond. He started The Career Network because he believed there was a better way for professionals and employers to connect. Founded in 1998, Beyond.com began as a niche career site serving the Philadelphia area. Rich went on to expand the company into a network of over 1,000 industry, local and specialty career sites, providing focused destinations for more than 35 million professionals in search of new opportunities and career development.