Too Old For The Office: Dinobabies and IBM

Dinobabies in the workplace? Is this some sort of new Meme or slang?

No, what it’s alleged to be is ageist behavior going on discriminating against older workers.

And it’s nothing new. Companies have been cutting out older workers for years. With the exception of the C-Level, most large companies prefer to hire young workers. And it’s not because they’re cool, or because they multitask, or for anything which the young generation prides themselves on.

Companies want to hire young workers because they are cheaper to employ. That’s it.

So, what you are dealing with is a corporate culture that embraces cheap labor costs and tolerates an ageist attitude towards experienced workers.

Let’s jump back for a moment and look at ageism in the current white collar workplace, and then talk about this alleged dinobabies talk.

The Hard Truth: Age Matters

The hard truth is that in today’s corporate culture, age matters. Recruiters might not be explicitly told that their clients do not want to hire older workers, but it’s a situation of read between the lines.

When you’ve seen company after company not respond to the resumes of more “senior” people, then you understand what’s going on.

And it’s becoming more an more prevalent. This wasn’t the case years ago, but it’s become more of an issue in the hiring process.

Age is and has always been an issue. The young college graduates are in tight spots themselves due to the silly 2 years experience requirement for entry level jobs. Which is basically impossible unless you understand how to finesse a resume, such as keeping your resume to one page.

And older candidates are stuck in a perilous situation where they are in a rough spot if they happen to list all of their experience and date themselves.

What’s The Story with Dinobabies and IBM

According to a lawsuit filed, IBM executives allegedly wrote of older executives and workers that they were Dinobabies and wanted to make them extinct.

This came after a huge number of executives were laid off. With a large percentage of them being over 40 years of age.

The emotional stress and depression that comes with this sort of act is terrible.

Allegedly, this sort of language when referring to older workers was standard.

The outrage here was that it seems like the company culture was to despise and ridicule older workers and seek to get them fired. Which, to many people, is the definition of bias and ageism.

IBM’s been getting heavy coverage, from NY newspapers, to international magazines.

Will The Trend Towards Age Discrimination Continue?

Unfortunately, from all accounts, this bias against senior and middle aged people will continue to grow.

And it has nothing to do with the performance of the older workers. The criticism of older workers is based on ageism, and a groupthink.

The real reason that companies do not want to hire and employ older people is simple: money.

As a recruiter, you see it all the time. A huge firm is in need of a project manager for their new west coast office. They would like someone with 5 years of experience, but are only looking to pay them 100k.

Recruiters almost never get requests for hiring of people with 10 years of experience or more. It’s quite simple, the company will not pay.

They would rather pay an executive search firm 30k once, then pay a PM 150k a year.

More importantly, younger people are more likely to work cheaper, and not have expectations for 401k, health benefits     or other things that people in their mid-thirties and older do.

A private equity firm that is seeking an executive assistant will likely not respond to resumes of people over 35. It’s an ill advised move, as experience is often found in senior candidates, but unfortunately image plays too large a role in certain industries.

The trend will continue as younger job seekers will not ask for things such as equity, pension, 401ks, and even health insurance.

Outsourcing and A.I. : No One’s Safe

Another important thing to understand is that younger people are not safe either. Companies who do not want to pay higher salaries for older persons, or pensions, or health benefits, are not going to stop there.

Over the years, there has been significant change in the recruiting industry. Roles that used to exist simply no longer do. Basic admin roles in most industries have been for the most part consolidated or outsourced overseas.

Even large scale companies use call centers in the Philippines and Central America for sales reps, answering services, account representatives, account managers, and certainly all data entry.

The impact has been see across industries. Public Relations companies who used to have all processed handled in-house (and still claim to have all aspects handled in-house) are outsourcing work overseas where they can pay pennies on the dollar.

Major LA and NYC PR agencies routinely use management services located in the Philippines to handle everything from influencer outreach, analytics, budgeting and scheduling, PR releases (these might be drafted by a single person stateside) and all aspects of social media and web design.

You would be surprised to find that a company that appears to have a staff of 100 is downscaled to 10 or less, with the principals of the firm still intact, and pulling in 7 figures, instead of high 6 figures, and all other staff essentially gone.

Even more concerning than outsourcing is A.I. tech. For jobs where there is not much creative need, such as basic data organizing (everyone who’s job is Excel based) or bookkeeping or email marketing or even traditional reception and administrative filing work, for those jobs artificial intelligence is the looming threat.

It’s well discussed in the media that jobs such as retail workers, factory workers, and other manual labor jobs will eventually be replaced. However, office workers, tech workers, and all non-government and non-political appointed roles are in jeopardy.

How Do Recruiters Deal with Older Candidates?

So, how does this tie into the world of recruiting and recruiters? Simple, it’s another example of how companies do not want to hire older people.

Recruiters cannot place you in a company. I know that people think that recruiters can guarantee them a job, but it’s just not true.

What recruiters do is handle the search for a company. Essentially, recruiters and agencies do all of the legwork, all of the hard work in screening people and making sure that only qualified, experienced and professional people end up being reviewed and interviewed.

Recruiters shouldn’t judge people based on age. The client company is the one who hires, and they are the ones who are biased. Unfortunately, after a while, recruiters and agencies will get the unspoken hint about what a company is seeking.

If, after sending many resumes over for a role, the recruiters see that the company doesn’t respond to senior or more experienced people, then they’ll get the hint.

What recruiters should do is handle older candidates like any other candidates. That’s because good recruiters are those who treat people with dignity. While a client company might not have ethics and be ageist, that does not mean that there won’t be another company on the horizon where that same person can land a role.

Recruiters must separate themselves from any sort of particular client bias. Understand it, but don’t let it inform your day to day working.

Because there are still companies that are not ageist and those companies can hire senior candidates.