Employers want to hire your bright future, not your past -- Career Center Blog

April 24, 2012

Employers want to hire your bright future, not your past

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By Matt Youngquist
NWjobs

Envision yourself standing beside a train track, watching an engine come rumbling down the line from hundreds of yards away. Or, perhaps more appropriately for the season, picture yourself at a Mariners game at Safeco Field, listening to the iconic train whistle that emerges every hour or so from the nearby rail line.

Either way, we all know the sensation. Trains emit an energetic, high-pitched sound as they approach, letting everybody know to get the heck out of the way. Then, the moment they pass by, the tone drops in pitch and the engine chugs out of sight with a fading, low-pitched "whoooooooo" sound of sorts. If we were competing on "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" we'd earn some extra credit for knowing that this sensation is called the Doppler effect.

If you're a middle-aged professional hunting for work, imagine your career using the train analogy. Perhaps you've already put 20 or 30 solid years into the workplace and have only five, 10 or 15 more years to go before you plan to retire. Naturally, in an interview situation, almost all of your answers will revolve around the great things you've accomplished during your employment to date. You've got a long and seasoned resume, after all, and many decades of experience producing results for employers. Why not talk about these highlights at length?

Unfortunately, to the employer, this interview approach sounds like a fading train whistle. Trust me, I've seen it many times. Hiring managers hope to hear candidates make some upbeat, enthusiastic noise about their bright future and how they can help solve the company's most pressing problems. Instead, they're subjected to lengthy monologues about all the wonderful things the candidates accomplished for other employers years ago.

Have you ever been guilty of this?

I suppose we could turn this into a debate about age discrimination, but that's really not my intent. My goal is to illustrate that this common interview occurrence is a predictable phenomenon -- just like the Doppler effect -- and occurs primarily because older candidates commonly approach interviews from a different perspective than younger, up-and-coming professionals.

When you think about it, most young professionals haven't accomplished much yet and still have the lion's share of their careers ahead of them. As a result, when asked interview questions, they tend to focus more on their future goals, what they hope to accomplish in the years to come and how eager they are to be given the chance to prove themselves.

Many (although certainly not all) older candidates, in contrast, fall back on telling war stories and basing their answers on the preponderance of their career narrative that has already taken place.

It makes perfect sense, at least from my point of view: Each camp gravitates to the resource it has in the most abundance.

Right or wrong, this is an important issue to monitor if you're beyond the halfway point in your career and seeking a new opportunity. Based purely on your experience level alone, you might have the tendency to rest on your laurels and assume the hiring manager will have no problem extrapolating future successes out of the litany of past achievements you've shared.

This assumption may be your undoing, however -- especially if you're up against somebody younger who is relentlessly hammering home his or her present and future capabilities, time and time again.

Employers live in the moment. If you're not already doing so, make sure you let them know that your best career years are still ahead of you, and not solely in the rear-view mirror.

Matt Youngquist is the president and founder of Career Horizons, a career counseling and corporate outplacement firm. Email him at myoungquist@nwjobs.com.

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Job Seeker | April 25, 2012 11:55 AM | Reply

Good advice, Matt. Many HR professionals themselves are on the short end of the experience stick, so not aging yourself or otherwise boring the youngsters who do hiring is a good strategy. Showing that you are eager to learn new things, learn a new company, and learn a new corporate culture are also fresheners that you can pepper into your interview talk. I have sensed that some employers fear exceptionally qualified people as if they are a threat to the corporate national security, and prefer to hire lesser experienced, newer, fresher, and yes - YOUNGER employees who are more easily shaped, molded and have fewer expectations of how things should be done. Act like a blank slate when appropriate, and this should take you far in some new workplaces.

Opinionated | April 27, 2012 4:16 AM | Reply

This article makes a lot of sense, but employers have a bias--perhaps right, perhaps wrong--that past results are an indicator of future success. Furthermore your chances of getting any white collar job are next to zero if you’re over 40, Hispanic and disabled.

I’m part-Hispanic and grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. However, my grades and test scores got me into me into the nation’s #1-ranked business school with majors in finance and accounting. Even though I graduated in the top 10% of my class and was fluent in four languages, I was closed out from firms like Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch and Citibank because of my ethnic background.

However, I pounded the pavement, earned my CPA and eventually was getting unsolicited job offers all the time. I developed a successful career making 5,000 times my age as a financial analyst and fund manager—2,500 times your age is how much you have to earn for your investment in a degree to be worthwhile.

I was working a terrific job in lower Manhattan, and post-9/11 became ill from exposure to the fumes and was nearly bed-ridden for five years. I developed a visible disability, which means I get now get double discriminated. I have long abandoned my search for senior positions, and I’ve been rejected for every one of over 3,000 positions for which I submitted a resume or application. Some years ago I was supervising a staff that was preparing tax returns for millionaires and Fortune 500 corporations. Nowadays, I’m even turned away for $10/hour positions at places like H&R Block.

Furthermore, I suddenly discovered that my Hispanic background is a huge liability, as the US is currently presenting a huge negative reaction to immigration. Over the past five years, Hispanics of all classes have become the scapegoats for the rise in unemployment among whites and blacks alike.

In summary, an Ivy League business degree, a graduate degree, a CPA, 15 years of international and Wall Street experience, a track record of integrity and four languages mean nothing in 2012 if you are over 40, Hispanic and disabled in the USA.

Carole | April 30, 2012 8:44 AM | Reply

In this country it doesn't matter what you have done or will do if you are over 50. If you are over 60, hang in until you can collect your social security and find a hobby as no one will hire you.