At 74, Barbara Corcoran is not any stranger to age-related bias. In any case, the founding father of actual property large the Corcoran Group shot to stardom as an onscreen investor on ABC’s Shark Tank, which premiered when she was 60—practically retirement age.
In a broadcast shared solely for Corcoran’s Patreon subscribers, the entrepreneur fielded questions from followers and followers about work, life, and careers. The primary such query involved ageism within the office.
“Ageism is a problem, and I’d be lying to you if I said, don’t worry about it, this is how you fix it up,” Corcoran advised the livestream viewers. Job seekers over 50 merely have a more durable highway, she mentioned; most hiring managers hesitate with older candidates, and sometimes see if they will discover somebody youthful as an alternative.
Staff’ finest wager at sidestepping the issue is to point out up with the vitality and vitality that younger individuals, stereotypically, have in spades. “Put your best foot forward,” Corcoran suggested. “The reality is, you’re not going to get all the interviews. I hate to admit that, but it’s really, really true.”
However when the 50-or-older crowd does nab an interview—whether or not over Zoom or in individual—they need to come ready and highly effective. “Vitality is what fools an employer,” Corcoran mentioned. “If you walk in there vital, full of life and enthusiasm, they’re going to forget that you’re 53 and think you’re acting younger and be more attracted to you.”
That vitality additionally extends to self-presentation. “Simply look your best and put that [age insecurity] to the side,” she went on, explaining that it provides you a greater shot since you’re not centered on it.
Corcoran herself hires many older employees, she mentioned, and he or she’s discovered that they usually have “much more wisdom” than their greener counterparts. “There’s no circumstance that they run into that they haven’t seen before, and have a solution for, so [they need] a lot less training,” she mentioned. “Be aware of that: You have a lot more life experience and judgment.” (The info bears this out; one 2014 study discovered that older individuals may very well be higher thinkers, owing to the “lifetime of knowledge” they will fall again on.)
However don’t let your popularity or expertise precede you, she cautioned. “Just make sure you really dress up and look the part of somebody energized,” she mentioned. “That’s the way you should be conducting an interview. That’s how you fight [ageism] very well.”
The hazards of ageism
It’s by no means been tougher to search out work as an older American, and biases have remained sturdy regardless of a rapidly aging workforce. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that this yr, 1 / 4 of the workforce can be older than 55, and of that group, a 3rd can be over 65, the everyday retirement age.
Our cultural fixation on youth—precisely like Corcoran described and really useful interesting to—is hardly harmless and has been shown to negatively influence older individuals politically, economically, and socially.
The dangerous information is that ageism, discrimination, and age-related bias don’t simply stem from youthful of us; it can be self-directed too, with equally dangerous outcomes.
Per a College of Michigan study, greater than 4 in 5 adults aged 50 to 80 expertise ageism in a number of kinds every single day, and people who often expertise extra types of ageism usually tend to undergo worse bodily and psychological well being.
Whereas Corcoran hasn’t spoken a lot in regards to the ageism she’s personally confronted, older ladies are inclined to bear the brunt of age-related bias, particularly as they method menopause. Within the workforce, “there’s a much higher bar for women to appear younger,” Heather Tinsley-Repair, a senior advisor of worker engagement at AARP, told Fortune’s Alexa Mikhail. “Women face a much higher bar with regard to ageism; they experience it earlier and more frequently than men.”
Although it’s inconceivable for any particular person employee to single-handedly upend a system so biased in opposition to them, perhaps Corcoran’s recommendation to lean into enthusiasm and vitality isn’t dangerous recommendation—irrespective of how outdated you’re.
