When did 57 become too old to work (…but too young to retire)?

In an effort to combat the age discrimination rife among a generation of younger bosses, fiftysomething job-seekers have been advised to leave their date of birth off their CVs. If only looking for a job when you’re older was as simple as that, says Clair Woodward

I applied for a job this week. I thought it was absolutely perfect for me and that my skills would be a natural fit for the role. However, as I hovered over the “send” button, I had the usual thought of anyone over 50 looking for a job: “I won’t get this – I’m too old.”

So it was comforting to find out that it’s not just me being paranoid about my age, as a report from recruitment site Totaljobs has discovered that ageism is rife in recruitment.

Some 750 HR departments and 4,000 workers were surveyed, with some staggeringly ageist results – most notably, that 57 is the average age at which workers are considered “too old” for a job, with two-thirds of HR professionals admitting to making assumptions about older workers, and many being put under pressure to recruit younger ones.

It’s Logan’s Run – the sci-fi movie in which anyone over 30 is killed – made real. But as the film was made in 1976, this observation is clearly wasted on many people in HR, who probably regard mid-Noughties indie music as “classic”.

I joke, but I’m genuinely horrified about these statistics – but entirely unsurprised.

My friends and I know that we’re seen as elasticated trouser-wearing, Werther’s Original-sucking has-beens by the world of recruitment, where I’ve seen job advertisements specifying that they want “a digital native” who’d be impressed with the office pool table and free Friday beers on offer. That’s very much age discrimination and illegal – but I doubt that many recruiters would see it as such. Just because I learned to type (type!) on a massive typewriter that unfurled from a huge wooden desk doesn’t mean I’m ripe for the scrapheap.

It doesn’t help that earlier this year, Age UK, the charity for older people, was ordered by an employment tribunal to pay compensation to a 58-year-old job applicant for age-related harassment. If an organisation like this can’t get things right, what hope is there for others to welcome older workers?

Even though the UK population is ageing, there seem to be no plans from the government to help older workers find satisfying jobs by encouraging companies to employ us, but it’s obvious that employers aren’t going to do it by themselves. I certainly feel that anyone around 60 is viewed by a lot of younger people as generally having tonnes of cash, having paid off their mortgage, swanning around on Saga cruises and preparing to enjoy the benefits of a big fat pension.

We’re not all like that. I’ve got years left on my mortgage, I don’t have a partner to share the cost of three days in Rome with, and my state pension doesn’t pay out for another eight years. Working until I drop is very much a financial necessity.

I also want to work. I’m still as full of ideas and enthusiasm as I ever was, and I learn a lot from working with younger colleagues, but I fear that the workplace is becoming an under-40s zone, especially as the Totaljobs report reveals that nearly half those questioned thought that older workers might not be a “cultural fit” for their company. Well, excuse me for once owning a Bay City Rollers T-shirt.

In the meantime, I shall continue leaving my age off my CV, trying to shoehorn three decades of interesting jobs onto the application form and hoping that employers will eventually realise that 57 does not equal “dead”.