STEVE RAWLINGS! Live on Shally's Alley.

All right, hey everybody, happy Friday, the end of your week. It's August 16th and you're live on Shelly's Alley, or maybe you're not live but you're watching the recording. Either way, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome everybody. Um, as, as you usually recall, we have one guest, but today we have three, and, uh, more power in numbers.

Yay!

And I thought, you know, this is a pretty hefty topic. I want to discuss ageism. Um, so I mean, I'm old. Steve, you're old. You're very old. Wendy, you're exempt, but that's okay.

Good answer.

29.

Here we are. And, um, so this, this kind of started when this, this whole conversation around this started when I Lost my job through some downsizing, and I reached out to my friends, these people amongst them, and just kind of, you know, had some questions about, you know, why am I not getting any responses? I'm applying for all these jobs, nobody's responding. And it sort of surfaced that there was probably some ageism going on, and I was like, what? No, that can't possibly be. There can't still be ageism. And how do they know how old I am? Because I never told them. And You know, all these other questions. And so I started doing some research and I started doing some, uh, yeah, I'm not gonna lie to you, I applied for a lot of jobs with a resume that didn't have any 10-year or older experience or college graduation or anything like that. I changed my picture, all kinds of things, you know, followed all the advice, but it's still, yet still some, somehow, I guess because people know who I am, um, it just really didn't get anywhere. So anyway, so I invited my friends Steve and Eric and Wendy to talk a little bit about that. And hopefully by the end of today, you'll have some ideas on what to do to mitigate it. And if you are in a position to make any changes in your organization to prevent this from happening at your organization, and if you're still working, looking for jobs, sorry, maybe you have some ideas on how to, you know, improve your, your likelihood, improve your probability. So I'd love to start out with the first question being to any of the panel members: why do employers not want to hire old people? And by the way, what I'm defining as old people is the protected category of 45 and older. Um, but you know, it just seems like 50 is that number that when you— you know, when I was 46 and 47, it didn't seem like it was that big of an issue, but then I hit 50 and it was like, whoa, I'm an IRFP member. So why do employers not want to hire us?

It comes down to one word: assumptions.

I was gonna say that, Eric. That's amazing.

Misconceptions, stereotyping.

Okay.

And one of the assumptions we had talked about, Shelly, was— and this is a simple one— I think that there's, there's a lot of hiring managers out there immediately assume if someone's older, they're going to expect more money, or they're going to want the very top of the range of something that they're posting due to their experience. And I remember us having that conversation about, you know, isn't that something that you should just vet with the candidate? You know, like, here's what my budget allows. Is this something that— does this fit into what you're able to come to us and work for? And if not, then, you know, it's not a fit. But I think one of the big assumptions is that, you know, I can't afford them, or they'll take the job at less money and then go and find something that pays them more. I think that that's—

yeah, so we're expensive. That's assumption number one, we're expensive. Mitigation is be transparent about your flexibility. But does that really work? Do they just— even if you tell them, hey, I'm, I'm open on compensation, do they just assume that you're going to be more expensive?

That's a good question.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, I think Eric nailed it with that word assumptions and assumptions. I think it's a lot of assumptions. I think it's assumptions that will, you know, be more expensive and perhaps assumptions that, oh, this person might be close to retiring. They might not be here very long. And there might be, I mean, depending on someone's experience with people who are older, there might be assumptions about mental acuity. Ability to keep up. I think, I think assumptions was the right word on that one, Eric.

I'll go a little further. So, and yes, so culture as well. Will they culturally fit in? Will they fit in with, with the vibe that we have created? So, but what I find interesting about the notion of assumptions, I, I've, I've been around since well, a year or two, but when OFCCP became the thing. And what OFCCP— and so I'm not advocating what it is that they did. Their goal is indeed noble. It is indeed good. But they codified it saying for companies that are hiring that you cannot make assumptions. And those assumptions we've just talked about. That they're going to be too expensive. They won't take this role. They're going to get up and go. They're going to— and the list could go on and on. They're not going to be a cultural fit. They're going to go on and on and on. But they recognize that human behavior will not simply free people from their prior assumptions. The whole notion of unconscious bias, it is baked in. We are wired for that. As humans. And so their goal was to tie it to penalties, right? How do we fix— we're going to fix this through penalizing. And that's not necessarily the best way to lead a horse to water. But I just want to throw that out there that it is something that is real and we are hardwired to have unconscious bias.

Okay, that's fair enough. I mean, I know that that's pretty serious. Unconscious bias is definitely something, you know, I teach people about, and I do that in training as well. I talk to hiring managers about it. So if you're aware that there is unconscious bias and you're aware that you need to mitigate it, I think that classifies you as probably less likely to commit this heinous crime of ageism. But What about organizations that are really not even, you know, they're small enough where they're not even really thinking about unconscious bias at all? And to talk into your culture fit question, what do you say to, you know, the job posting that says, must, you know, high energy, must have high energy level or whatever? Doesn't that basically just say no old people allowed?

It implies that.

You've seen me in the workplace, right? And I mean, I am like, I've been called the Energizer Bunny. I've been called Tigger. I mean, you know that, you know. And so it's not an energy thing, right?

No, I mean, Steve, when you show up to work, do you like immediately take a nap?

No, no, I don't take a nap till later in the afternoon, but then I work till 8. You know, it depends on the day. You know, sometimes I need a nap by 8.

Yeah, like, where does that come from? Old people are tired come from?

No. You know, if anything, we're up early, I think. You know, like, I'm at my desk by 6:30 in the morning most days.

Okay, but then you don't go to bed at noon, you still stay up past the time everybody else stays up. We do require less sleep, right?

Yeah, that's got to be a positive. We can throw that in there. I like the LinkedIn comment. And this is something that Eric and I discussed in length. And Wendy, I'd be interested to hear your opinion about it. Reporting to someone younger. I've been in that situation. I know Eric has. Wendy, I don't know your background. But I've been in— Eric knows I worked in startups. Shelly, you know this for a while. Awhile, and pretty much all my bosses were, you know, 10, 20 years younger than me. Um, I'd be curious to know, you guys experiencing that? Because I've certainly—

I don't care if my boss is younger, so why should my boss care that I'm older? Like, why, why is it— why do I need to accept their age but they don't accept my age?

Agree.

It doesn't seem fair, right? I'm accepting that they're younger. I'm not going to criticize them for not having my length of years. But why should they criticizing, criticize me by having that length of year? Like, it just seems like it's essentially an excuse to, to be discriminating, right?

Yes. And I've also worked for people who are younger than me before as well. And, you know, I think that, I think that becomes a matter of maturity and really, you know, maturity in the one who's older to be able to have some grace for the one who's younger. And help them to be comfortable in that. And, and where, you know, if you see gaps in that younger boss, you know, gracefully helping those, helping them in those gaps, but not in a threatening way. But I do, I do think that sometimes younger people are maybe even intimidated by having someone older working for them or might feel threatened by that. And some of that may be maturity.

There have been situations that I have been in where in the startups again, that a lot of the startup cultures and Eric, you can certainly speak about this, right? Because you've been in startup cultures more than I have. But a lot of the startup cultures, they start off with like a couple of people that have a great idea. Sometimes they're like right out of college, like Stanford or something, and then they grab some more of their of their colleagues and their classmates. And next thing you know, they're on the startup craze. They get a little bit of money, they go nuts, they hire more people, and they're always looking for like the young buzz, you know, culture going, which is great. It's thriving and creative. And I've been in situations where, just because I've been doing this for over 25 years, where I have a lot more experience and a lot more understanding of the nuances of sourcing and recruiting than the director of recruiting I was reporting up to or the VP of recruiting I'm reporting up to. Simply nothing against them. I mean, hardworking, capable folks. But, you know, and Shelly, Eric, you've been around on this block too. You know, like, the experience is the best teacher in recruiting. What works, what doesn't work. Being able to pivot, you know, things like setting up ATSs so that it's not creating more of a problem than it is, that perhaps lesser experienced folks that haven't gone through all of that don't have the vision or the experience to—

Haven't run into those problems, right?

Yeah. And we're trying to— Eric, you know, you and I worked together in a company where the ATS was just a disaster because when they set it up, they really had never done it before. They didn't know the right questions to ask, the way do it. Um, and, and we had to go in and clean it up, um, and it took 6 months. And I think there was still a little bit of resentment from that, saying, hey guys, if you want this to work like you want it to work, here's, here's how to do it. And us being— of us stepping into that role of being the older gray-haired guys that have like, yeah, we've done this like 10 times in our career, here's what needs to be corrected— I think was a little, a little, um, intimidating.

I, I can understand that. I can appreciate that. There's been— let me, let me rephrase. In my experience, specific areas of knowledge, specializations, uh, you know, skills— like, for example, I'm going to give you a really obvious one: nuclear engineering. If you're in nuclear engineering, you went to school in the '70s, so that makes you whatever age you are right now, and it's not 20 years old. 20-year-olds aren't nuclear engineers. So if you want to hire a nuclear engineer, you've got to look at a population that is aging. And so what I'm, what I'm trying to explain by this is that if you're really good at what you do and that's not management, then why would you want to take somebody else's job that's a manager but isn't necessarily a specialist, right? Management is a much easier skill than nuclear engineering. Therefore, if you want to be a manager, you don't have to be a nuclear engineer. So I don't really see why nuclear engineers are going to want that job. Like, oh, I'm going to envy that 20-year-old's job as a manager. No, they probably aren't. Right. And so I think that there's— it's almost like they aren't looking at the right reasons because we don't all want to be managers, with Wendy's exception. You know, she's the VP of a large organization. But I've been a VP and honestly, I can give it up. I don't really care to do that again. It's not, I didn't get the job because I was a VP. So, and let me throw this other data, piece of data into the equation also before I, Eric, turn to you about that article you sent me. Right now in the United States, there are more people in their 50s than there are people of the age 10 below. In other words, 10 years from now, when the babies start going to college and working and we're still around, there will be more of us than them. And that's a problem. And it's going to continue. I was— I had somebody on the show that is an expert on what they call the cliff of higher education. Which is that between now and the next 5 years, there's going to be a drop from, uh, of 600,000 college graduates because every year 100,000 fewer people than the previous year are going to go to college. And that is partially caused because of the population, not to mention also people just choosing not to go to college, but sheer numbers. Like, there are fewer human beings going into this. So by ignoring a certain population, then you're essentially, you know, walking yourself into a trap. So that does bring me into this ageism article, Eric, that you pointed out. Um, can you share some of the, you know, statistics? I'm going to post a link to it, but you know, what stood out to you from that article on, on LinkedIn about ageism? By the way, it was published by MIT Sloan Management Review. So this isn't just somebody's, you know, off-the-cuff opinion. It's an actual, you know, legitimate publication. So what stood out to you?

Two things. One, you just nailed, and that is the notion of ageism is going to become worse before it becomes better. Right? It is— we are— there are going to be more of us who are going to experience this, in part because there are more of— I mean, just the sheer numbers, there's going to be more of us. I do— I have hope. I have faith in humanity that the young ones are going to see the wisdom and learn how to embrace what it is that those who are older than them, how do they bring that to the market? But so that was one really important statistic. Another, though, that really jumped out is U of M did a study and they found that 82% of Americans over 50 experience ageism daily.

I mean, not just at work. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

This is, this is in life, right? And two-thirds, two-thirds. And I'm seeing, you know, with the comments that we're seeing here, Rashali, you experienced this. I think we all have. Two-thirds have experienced it in job discrimination. This is a real thing. This is not— so folks who are participating in this conversation, you're not alone. If you feel it, it's because, well, statistically, it's true. Two out of three of us. Yes. Yes.

It's true. And I was shocked by it because, I mean, first of all, look at this, right? I look 20, don't I?

Of course, you're 30.

Never mind this part. Yeah, I was shocked because, you know, I'm a specialist in an area, and when I was applying for jobs, I was applying for jobs that are specialists. It was, you know, head of sourcing, head of talent analytics. And by the way, these were fairly seasoned jobs where I was applying for a management position, and I thought it would actually help me that I had the experience, but no, instead I look back at those positions that got filled after I applied and the people in them are 25-year-olds and it surprises me that they got hired into positions that require that much experience. On the requisition it says must have 10 years of experience, I know those people don't have that. So it's like, you know, what happened in that exchange that sort of, You know, where did the 10 years of experience go away?

This is another show we should do. But Eric and I have had long discussions. And Eric, by the way, is writing a book. And I think this is going to be a chapter or more than one chapter. And we've coined it, and this might be the first time it's rolling out to the real world, of superstitious hiring. Okay. Okay. And superstitious hiring, Eric and I have talked about It's about all of these assumptions, misconceptions, beliefs that companies, leaders, hiring managers even carry into their hiring practices. And so many of them look for things like, I don't know, I just hit it off with them, or while they seem like they'd be a really good fit based on no information, no evidence, no references, no nothing more than a 15 or 20-minute conversation. And don't get me wrong, I understand it's important to have people in your department that you connect with, that you can work with. But just based on these, these, these small moments of interviews, you know, they make these assumptions and, and, and, and hire based on them. And something tells me that, that when you look back at those jobs, that the reason those people got the, got the, uh, got the jobs were because of one of these superstitions. Oh, they, oh, they graduated from Stanford. You know, we have really good luck with Stanford people here. You know, and what's luck? Luck is superstition, right? Or, oh, we don't have very good luck with, you know, people from Ohio State here. You know, they just don't seem to, they just don't seem to fit. They, you know, who's they? Would you have one person from Ohio State that, that, that you know, you hated and had to fire for some reason. I mean, that doesn't mean that that's not a fit. But yet those superstitions carry on almost indefinitely into hiring managers' behaviors. And there's a lot of superstitions about age that we've talked about.

And I see an opportunity here. We have two sides of the table. We have the hiring team side of the table, and we have the candidate side of the table. And both have a role in it, and both have a piece of responsibility. And I think The opportunity on the hiring team side of the table is, you know, Eric, you made a good point about, you know, the punitive method isn't always the best way to lead the horse to drink the water. But if we were to start to, you know, educate, if there was more education around how age diversity is a powerful strategy in maintaining a competitive edge in business. How age diversity sets up teams to perform better in problem solving. You're bringing more, more angles and perspectives in solutioning that education to the hiring teams. And then I think on the candidate side of the table, you know, you have to realize this is the landscape we're in right now, like it or not. And so what are the things that I can do as a candidate in this landscape Until hopefully maybe one day it starts to shift. And yeah, I think how we position ourselves, you know, I think of a resume like the first third of the resume is the most valuable real estate of the resume because that's what people will glance at and decide whether to keep scrolling. So what's conveyed in that first part of the resume is going to be important. And perhaps, perhaps the older candidates Maybe it's worthwhile to put a statement up there, a few statements that dispel some of the assumptions.

That's an interesting idea. You know, I would— it would be fun to toss around how that might— what that kind of verbiage would look like. But I think you're right, because I think, you know, I mean, I find it odd that DE&I, you know, inclusion has been such a hot topic, but yet ageism is still kind of the lingering one that's out there of all the ways that human beings discriminate against each other or have unconscious bias against each other. Ageism is still the one that seems to linger, I think, in hiring. Yet companies have embraced the need for diversity and recognize that it's not just good to have diverse folks working for you, but big corporations have done studies on this that shows it makes them more profitable, it creates better work environments, creates a better culture, except when you're old. And that's kind of, that's kind of very odd to me. And I wonder how, Eric, this is something I could see, I could see, I could see something popping out of your head. I wonder how that's something that we could, that we could deal with.

I believe Shelly is going to share another article with folks here in just a little bit. This one.

Yeah, this is the one about the case for hiring older workers. And highlighting some of the benefits. Yeah, sorry, go ahead, continue on.

Yeah, no, I mean, what you're talking about, folks, is this notion of cognitive diversity. And there is a direct correlation between cognitive diversity and innovation, right? So yes, there is this notion that raw mental horsepower does drop once we hit about 30. However, This is a whopper. However, that's not why people are hired. If you take a look at how— so any of us that talk about competencies tied to the work that is being done and what performance actually looks like, the indicators, it's knowledge and expertise that are tied to job performance, not raw mental horsepower. And it is shown that as we age, that we actually accumulate and we grow in, in those indicators. Right? So the more, the more of that cognitive diversity that we can bring to the table organizationally in terms of organization design, the more productive the organization will be. I want to touch on something real quick that Randy mentioned. So yes, there is a relationship So compensation is a thing. I mean, let's face it, we've been around longer and therefore our comp is theoretically higher. The question is, though, I mean, so there are two things. One, let's go back to that word assumption.

Right.

There's a fallacy. So they are assuming that we require more money.

But whose decision is that to make? Isn't it ours?

And that is, you're absolutely correct. Secondly, so not only is there that assumption, I'm going to flip that and maybe there is value associated with that. Sure, there are organizations that seek to hire to budget, period. There are other organizations that seek to hire to solve a problem. And, and so somewhere between the two is, is, you know, there's this beautiful Venn diagram, um, that I think it does require, to your point, Shelly, that it might require a bit of flexibility on both sides. And that is an education, that is a matter of education.

Well, and that's why there's salary ranges, right? I mean, salary ranges, you know, shouldn't— what are they based on typically? Tenure, you know, experience, cost of living. Yeah, yeah, you know, cost of living. But I mean, like, even, even when you look at, at salary ranges, there's a lot of organizations that, oh, here's the range, but we hire at the midpoint. Well, what's the point of having the range then? You know, like, if, if you're not going to say, well, wow, here's somebody that's got a lot more experience than we thought we'd attract with this job. Like you were saying, Shelly, a specialist job. Wow, here's somebody with a lot more experience than we thought we'd give the specialist job. And he needs to be in the 75th percentile of the, of the range. Well, that seems like a fair trade. We're getting all this experience and knowledge that, that, that we weren't expecting to get, so pay him a little more.

Um, it's not in the range.

Yeah, I don't think it— I don't think people are ever expecting to blast— for the company to blast the range out of the water and just, oh, I, you know, what's the top of your range? Well, I need more than that. I don't think that that is— I think that's seldom the case.

And if you're passing an age buster, an age busters campaign, you know, like, you know, collecting case studies about, you know, the successes that happen when you have age diversity. I mean, my mentor, my mentor will be 80 years old in a few months. She's probably the sharpest human being I know. I would, if I had a chance, I would hire her over anybody. She's authored over 22 books. She authored another one last year. She facilitates study groups around neuroscience. She wakes up every morning excited about what she's going to learn that day. And, you know, I could just see, you know, collecting case studies and sharing them out. Just, you know, when people have assumptions, a lot of times it's because they have a couple of exposures to something and then they make that be a stereotype across the board. Or covering that with examples of, of, of the success of it could be helpful, right?

I want to throw something out there. So that one of the points about why this exists is, um, the, uh, the longevity of, you know, someone that's older may not stay that long, right? They're, they're ready to retire. Well, did you know that today, right now, the average tenure for an American worker is 4.1 years. So most people of any age, regardless of age or race or gender, are staying at a job for 5 years or less. Then why are they worried that someone that's 50 is not going to stay at their job for 5 years or less? What, are they going to die when they get to 55 or 54 and a half? I mean, You know, there was an interesting article on— I'm embarrassed to even tell you the source, but I read it on the USA— the AARP website, the Association of American Retired Persons website. And it was an economist that had done a study that said we need to stop talking about the, the age, the average age of people in this country, because when you look at demographics and they take into consideration longevity or the average lifespan, the data shows 71 years. But what this economist said is if you make it to 50 and you're already over 50 and you study that group of over 50s and look at what the average age is for them, it's 87. So, you know, the average age might be 71 from the day you're born, but if you're already 50 and over, you're, you're living past 87 on average, which means as a 50-year-old, I still have, well, I don't know, a few years. I'm not gone yet. You know, yeah, I mean, I still have more years left than I have experience. Yeah. So I get to 87 and this is like we're talking about data of, you know, the United States today. So the economist's point was, we shouldn't look at the, the longevity data as the days that you— the day that you were born. We should look at it by the markers that you reach along the way.

That makes sense. And you look at my mentor, who's about to be 80 years old in a few months. She and I travel together to conferences. It's hard to keep up with her. I mean, there are plenty of people who are going strong physically and mentally My dad was doing executive—

so my dad was a, uh, he's a retired organizational psychologist, chief HRO. Um, he was doing executive coaching until he was 8— up until 83 years old.

Yeah.

So there goes the retirement, you know, stereotype, right? We're gonna retire in a few years. I mean, I think the average age of retirement is 65 anyway. So even if you're—

it's going up a little bit, and it's going up, right?

So you still have another 15 years. People don't stay that long.

Well, and you know what, it's honestly, man, when you get to be my age, you know, stability is a great thing. I'm looking for someplace where I can, you know, park and do my job well and, and, and be here for a while, you know. Um, you know, one of the reasons that I went to University of Virginia is it's a, it's a, it's a legacy institution, right? And, and it's been around forever. It's, it's going to continue to be around forever. I work for the healthcare side. Um, it's got a hospital that's growing. Their needs aren't going to— there's not going to be less of a need for nurses and allied health people in the future. So this was a great place for me to end up in. And a university environment is an environment that values a little gray, you know, wisdom and life experience to bring. So for me, it was a great fit. And have I made more money in my life before? Sure. But that's money. Money's not everything.

And you may not need that much money now anymore. I mean, you need to pay for retirement. And you already did that, putting away for kids' college, and you already did— you know, these, these expensive parts of our life may be behind us, so we may not need the same amount of money that we need when we were starting a family.

And to me, disability and, and, and, and being part of a, of a, of an institution like this was more important. I—

it might have been you, Shelly. I don't recall who, who said this, um, but the decision— the dis—

this—

and, and Wendy, you could certainly talk to this as well. There are two sides to the equation. There's the hiring side, and then there's a candidate side. I mean, they're both valid. And both have the opportunity to interview the other. Both have the opportunity before you even apply to explore. I mean, well, once you apply to explore one another. And I'm gonna go back to some of you one another.

So talk a little bit more about that. Because, because I, you know, I think interviews should be always a two-way street. And that's when I do coaching, which I do as well, is that I always coach the candidate. You're interviewing the company as well. It's not like they ask you something, you prove you can do it. It's, it's, it's both. So talk—

that's where I was going. So here's the thing, folks. We have just as much agency in the outcome as the company does.

We—

it is incumbent on us, it's not incumbent on the company to make sure that they're a culture fit for us.

It's also— we decide if we're a culture fit, right?

Right, exactly. And you know what? There might be some cool companies out there based on their— based on what they do, based on their, their brand. I'm saying that in air quotes. But at the end of the day, it might not be right for you. It might not be an organization that embraces what it is that we have to offer.

Right.

And you know what? I don't know if I would want to be there. If they don't have value in those things that I deem to be important in life, then why would I go there?

Right.

So it— so this is— and there are certainly ways that we can go about determining what that looks like. I've gone into one— I worked for one organization where there was only one person on the executive, on the ELT, on the executive leadership team that was over 40. Only one. And so that sort of tells you something about what the company values.

But, you know, playing devil's advocate, if you stay there long enough, then they'd have two.

Correct. Correct. However, I already know what it is that they historically— the decisions that they have historically made, right? And the past is a pretty good indicator of what tomorrow is going to look like. And so I think it's also incumbent on us to be mindful of the environments that we are exploring, that we're going into.

Yeah, that's good advice. Wendy, I have a question for you. What do you think organizations, you know, large organizations— I mean, you manage— not only did you manage huge logistical deployments, but you also manage a pretty large organization now. What do you think organizations can do to audit their practices to discover any hidden ageism? You know, we just talked about how it's unconscious bias, but what do you think organizations can do to discover that?

That's a great question. I probably have more ideas on what we could do proactively, but as far as auditing, you know, because a lot of this is not easily detectable. And I do think that survey, like surveys and feedback loops, like even candidates in process, having some surveys and feedback loops from them to get an idea of their impressions and, you know, what their experience was in, in the process. You know, I think, I think on the proactive end, I mean, we bet we all know standardizing, standardizing interview questions, educating is important. I even think like AI, using AI in screening could become pretty powerful as long as the AI is trained properly to not be biased.

Yeah, what if the AI learned on all the profiles that are people 20 years or older, or 20 years or younger, now all of a sudden, yeah, oh my God.

No, no, there's a story. I got to interject a story about that real quick. PBS did a really, really fascinating thing on AI. And there was a project that they talked about, and it was all about hiring. And they use recruiters as references about how a recruiter can look at a resume and sum somebody up like, you know, 30 seconds, you know, you got 30 seconds looking at a resume. And they were trying to train AI to do this. And so I think it was Amazon, and don't hold me to that. I'm pretty sure it was that spent a ton of money with their own internal AI developing a way to better screen people because they wanted more diversity. The goal was we recognize that we need more diversity in our workplace. And part of that was age because it was a very younger organization, so to speak. And they put a ton of money into this. And they developed this big AI thing. And when they started crunching out resumes for recommendation, guess what? They were all like people under 35 from certain schools, which is what their demographic already was. So Wendy, to what you were saying, the AI, because of the people who made the AI, already had this bias built into them, built an AI system that was going after the things. And then they said, okay, well, let's be more like this.

But this is a 20-year-old.

We want diversity, but they got to be like this. And then they did it again and they scrubbed off names. They scrubbed off years of experience, 10 years. They scrubbed off years of graduation from university. Guess what? They got the same results again because it was matching up from people that had this experience or these programs or whatever. And some of these programs were 5 years old or 10 years old. Stanford. So what was it grabbing them? It was grabbing them exactly the same thing that they had always been hiring and not giving them. And they finally scrapped the project. That's the gist of the whole—

I remember that, reading about that.

Yeah. So I didn't mean to interrupt Whitney, but that was just so relevant to what you were saying.

It is, because the way the AI is trained is everything about whether you could even depend on it. And I think back to how could you audit? I mean, one simple way might be to, to take all the applicants for all of the jobs and call out the ages and see who got hired and who didn't, and to do some deeper dives inside of that on why did this one get hired over that one. That, that could be one way of, of auditing. I see, I see just a huge opportunity for educating and increasing awareness in the hiring teams. You know, I keep thinking about what Eric said about like, like, let's not be punitive to get people to comply. Let's educate them in a way that they see it. They see, oh, wow, we are missing out if we're not tapping this pool of talent. Where could we go if we hire from this pool of talent?

I've had the pleasure of helping craft hiring manager training programs over the years. And as part of it, one of the things that we talk about is, so we, I do go back to what the OFCCP says. So you say, I want somebody with 5 to 10 years of experience.

All right.

No more than 10 though.

Yeah. And if they have 10 years and a day, they're out disqualified.

Right.

And so the question for the hiring manager is, all right, so I'm trying to understand something. If you, If you're saying 10 years is the cap and you have somebody that has solved your exact problem 2 different times elsewhere, and they got great results, you're saying you're going to pass that person, right? And the answer, of course, is going to be no. I'd want to talk to that person.

But you can't look at them if you posted the job as 5 to 10.

Exactly.

Because anybody that was 11 didn't apply.

You can't even— and you even legally— legal OCCP says you cannot even consider them.

They—

you have— you have— I mean, you have to pass.

Well, it goes back into those superstitions, right? And a lot of these job descriptions are written on their superstitions. Like, when they're sitting down saying, okay, what do I need, right? Think of all the superstitions that they have as far as what they think they need as opposed to what they really need. Is it skills-based of what they need, is— or is— or are they really— you know, I mean, I, I could think of a dozen things that influence, like, just writing the job description for a new job, you know, of what they're going to put up. And, you know, Shelly, you know, you, Eric, you've done these as well. We do intakes for that reason, right? To really vet out what are you really looking for? What do you really want? You know, and those deep dive questions that we do in intakes when we get to do rec, like, what problem are you trying to solve? What do you expect this person to be able to bring to the table? Where are the gaps in your team. And I don't think they even think of that. Like, what are you missing? So do you want just somebody like everybody else? Certainly you have deficits, you have skill gaps, or you need somebody who's better at this than what I have on my team right now so that we can lean on them for that.

Very good reason to hire is to hire people that don't know— that know what to do what you don't know what to do.

Yeah, exactly.

Randy, you asked a really good question. Um, what percentage? I don't— so I don't know the actual percentage. What I do know though is that that number has come down. And part of that is because of— part of it is because of the punitive side of things. It's the stick as opposed to the carrot. I will say, though, that I have seen hiring managers repeatedly say, I want 5— they put a cap on it. And so, and then part of the question, I kind of want to understand why is it 5 years and not 4 and a half? Why is it 10 years and not 10 and a half. You know, let— I wanna— I just wanna— to Steve's point, that's part of the intake. What is the— why are you doing this? Um, frankly, um, my— I have found that this— and they don't want to say this to me because I have, well, my hair color's lighter.

Um, and but you have been called Santa Claus in some of the places more than once.

Um, that was the topic I was going to get to eventually, but yeah, what, looking like Santa Claus? Well, no, your hair. No, I'm just kidding.

Um, but so they won't actually come out— rarely do they come out and say age, but they hint around at, well, I don't want there to be a conflict between, you know, somebody coming in with this much experience And so it's not age. They won't say it's age. They'll frame it in terms of years of experience. Come on, it's age, right?

Or they don't fit, or they don't fit with my team.

Yeah, they might. Yeah.

And one of those superstitious answers. I just didn't get a good vibe.

The hiring manager has been out of school only 10 years, right? And right.

And so, well, they didn't seem teachable. They seem like, you know, they seem like they know, they're set in their ways. They're set in their ways. Yeah, no, I I've heard those things.

I was set in my ways when I was 22. I don't know about you, but age had nothing to do with that.

Well, they talked about it.

It's back to the assumptions. It's back to the assumptions that a younger manager is going to not want to have someone older than them reporting to them.

They're going to run out of candidates pretty soon.

Yeah.

And so, being simple, I think there's a big opportunity. And, you know, so how do you address this? This, right? When you have managers that are saying these things, um, or, or skirting the issue, um, if you are a— if you have the opportunity to hire somebody that you could learn from, wouldn't you?

Right?

Right.

So you have— so yes, you need XYZ done. That's why you're allocating money to either make money, save money, or increase value. That's one of those three things, right? So if you can hire somebody that could do one of those things and has the competencies, wouldn't it be pretty awesome if there's a plus one where you can learn from that person?

Right?

It would be. Yeah.

Right. And it does, it does bring me back to wanting to ponder what, what might be some phrases, what might be some things that could go in the top third of the resume that might disarm, you know, disarm some of those assumptions and maybe cause the reader of the resume to go, maybe I'll talk to this person.

Well, you know, I will work for less than your young, your young employees. About dispelling statement, seasoned professional with a passion for learning, you know, something that might not be the best way My background is a place called Chautauqua Institution, and it's a place for lifelong learning. That's— I've been going there my whole life, and this is a community of people that spend 9 weeks during the summer, you know, of all ages, from, you know, young to, to very old, to, to hear speakers, you know, from, you know, all topics, talk about things. You know, we'd be— congressmen go up there. General Petraeus was there way back in the day. Margaret Mead, Anna Freud, Eleanor Roosevelt, you know, to hear— because people want to learn. And I think, and I think, you know, maybe one of the things that that can dispel some of that is that we're not set in our ways. If anything, we recognize that the world is a dynamic, changing place. The older I get, the more I'm reminded of that every day. A lot of my time— and, Shelly, you and I have talked about this— goes into keeping up with the technology that's up there, keeping up with, hey, what's this new product? You and I both vet new technologies all the time to just check them out so that we know what's out there, whether we decide to try to use them or not.

Um, funny side note though, the more of those new technologies I bet, the more that I've seen, the fewer of those new technologies are actually new.

Yeah, no, you're right. They're, they're the like version 2.0, 3.0 of old ideas that we've seen.

Yeah, copy and paste.

And we could point those out. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've, I've had, I've had somebody say, wow, look at this neat new thing. And, and Eric and I thought, yeah, this reminds me a lot about X, Y, and Z that we did back in the '90s. But yeah, it's pretty cool. I like the new I like to do face to it, you know. Um, and, and, and that brings me to another point that I wanted to mention. And, and Eric, I know that you went through an experience like this of being in a company that's trying to reinvent the wheel, um, for, for especially around talent, like talent best practices, talent process, interview best practices, and, and, and trying to figure out, like, you know, how to do this, trying to figure out building their own ATSs. I've seen, like, you know, and not even knowing that there's a robust market out there of affordable applicant tracking systems that a smaller company could afford. Eric, you were in a situation where it was a company that did a lot of contract labor, and they were trying to build their own contract labor tracking system. And there's so many good ones out there that we know about that they just assumed that because they were doing this, that they were the first ones ever to do this model. And bringing someone seasoned in that's worked in these spaces can be like, oh no, There's lots of resources that you have available that maybe you're not aware of, just because I've been out there and have played with them.

That comes back to the notion of cognitive diversity, right? It's— and having that within organizations helps mitigate the risks of that.

So how much effort and time did they put into rebuilding that system that was all readily available? Literally years of time and capital.

Going back to what Wendy was saying, how do we structure, how do we present ourselves to overcome the assumptions, right or wrong, the assumptions that hiring managers have about us old folk? Wendy, part of it, frankly, is they might not be prepared to work with us, right, at all.

They just might not be ready to, which is okay because that means we don't want to work with them. And I understand that, and I kind of accepted that in my search. And then when I did, I finally found something or somewhere where, like Steve, um, that's not an issue. Right? Age is—

they're—

they are prepared to work with, with it because they're looking for the skills and the experience. Um, I, I think honestly, deep down inside, I feel like diversity is a fallacy. Because let me explain why. If you take 10 people, every single one of them of a different race or skin color, and you raise them all in the same town at the same time they all go to the same schools, graduate from the same colleges, and then they all go to work, there's no diversity there. They might have different skin colors, but they're not diverse considering 10 people who grew up in 10 different cities or 10 different countries or even 10 different counties within the same city. In Atlanta, we have 15 counties, by the way. So I think diversity is not about physical characteristics. And for some reason, we seem to have been making that, you know, that's where diversity always leads, all these diversity programs about, you know, Black, Asian, Hispanic. But that's really, you know, I'm Hispanic. People don't see that in me because I don't look Hispanic, but I actually think like a Hispanic because I grew up outside of this country. For my formative years until I went to college. So, you know, do I check the box? No. You know, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I pass for white, right? Because of the application I did. Wendy, I wanted to come back and ask you, I appreciate the answer about the audit. I think it's tough, but taking that to the other side, let's assume that you're one of those organizations that Eric said is ready. How do you market? What, what, what do you say to attract older adults, right? Like, if your company is ready to hire people over 50, what do you place, like an AARP ad or something? You know, what do you do? How do you talk to— how do you— how would somebody talk to us as a 50-plus in a way that's not— I want to say condescending, You know, what do they say?

That's a, that's a good question. We froze for a minute, but I got, I got your question and that's a good question. Yeah, I think it's a combination of where we target to put the message out to and hey, why not AARP and some of these organizations where we know the mature and wise ones are hanging out. So targeting those organizations where they are and then I think it's the actual messaging itself and I think Yeah, what's coming to my mind, like, I'm thinking about, um, probably messaging that is emphasizing seeking, um, you know, seeking seasoned wisdom, mature, you know, some maturity in the mindset, wisdom, experience, experience and wisdom. Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably the words we use, you know, depth experience.

Yeah, I think the words have a lot to do with it. I need to think about that some more, but it tells me that the words that we use, you know, if you're going back to traditional recruitment marketing, if there is such a thing, if you're trying to attract people that are representatives of a particular protected class, you can seek to understand what, like, say for example, those benefits are of interest. Um, not trying to be stereotypical, but as a Hispanic, I can tell you that a lot of times Hispanic families are more in tune with benefits that include elder care because a lot of us have our parents living with us. And it's just a cultural thing that once your parent gets to a certain age, they move in with you. Hispanic families do that. Likewise, with gay people have different interests in what the benefits might be that are highlighted. So I know that, but with old people, I can't think of, like, what would, what would somebody say in an ad or highlight about their benefits? It's not about health insurance because you have to have that for everybody, right? It doesn't—

yeah, so aggressive, aggressive retirement plans help, right? Pinch it.

That would do it.

Well, no, seriously, I mean, I, I played a lot of startups, and before I went to University of Virginia, I hadn't accumulated much for retirement. They have a very— that was part of my decision to come here was it was— they have a very robust retirement and pension program. And of course, they've got faculty, you know. So, I mean, it was a motivating factor to apply again.

I'm sorry, what's the website to apply again? Hey, man, that does bring me to— I just thought of something. What if on the top of your resume, to mitigate some of this, you say planning for retirement in 30 years?

That's right.

I like that. Yeah.

I'm not dead yet.

Right. Not dead yet.

Not dead yet.

So I think there's something that in addition to, yes, pension, but, and the opportunity for our brains to be used. I really do think that many, that the vast majority of us still find meaning and purpose in contribution.

Yes.

And there truly is a sense of purpose there. And I think what we seek— I've spent a lot of time digging into this notion of belonging. And there— shameless plug— there are a few posts that I've made on belonging out there. But we seek to belong.

Yes.

And that belong doesn't necessarily have to be in a cliché that belonging doesn't have to mean with a group of old farts, right? It's belonging in the fabric of an organization.

Yeah.

Right.

And so how then do we— it's a matter of finding our tribe. That tribe isn't necessarily the geriatric set.

Well, Eric, isn't that a project you're working on now with a startup is trying to And this occurred to me when Wendy was talking about like, like surveys or, you know, like, how do we, how do we gauge these things? I mean, I think one of the things you're consulting on now is a startup that's doing just that, trying to help people, trying to gauge ways, how do people feel like they belong? What, and even though, even though organizations do events to try to foster that, are they really fostering that? I mean, what are you finding as you're doing consulting on this project?

You know, so I just talked with a head of HR, a CPO for a services organization this week. And one of the challenges that she has is so around retention, they're going through tremendous change and they want to retain that. They, because of the change there, she's concerned about retention. She has folks that are out in the field because it's a services-based organization. They work remotely. And her concern is how do we make them feel part of what's going on? And part of that is how do you create environments for people to feel connected so where they can establish relationships, where they feel part of a tribe? And the tagline for the company, people will leave companies, they'll leave jobs, but they won't leave their community. And so I think, Wendy, I, I'll tell you what, if you post a role where I see that I can be my— I could be this guy who's in his 50s, right? I could contribute and I could be part of something.

Yes.

I mean, it's not at that point, it's less about the pension. It's less. It's more about purpose.

Yes, I'm with you on that, and I do feel like, um, at the risk of stereotyping, probably, um, you know, I think the older we get, I mean, sure, everyone has retirement, has financial stability on their mind. There's that, and people are in different places. Some people already have that set and they're good, and now they merely want to be able to use their minds, grow, contribute. You know, other people, it's going to be a combination, but I do feel like, I think you nailed it, Eric, we never ever outgrow our need, our desire, our need as a human being to belong and, you know, belong and contribute. And I think that's a great point in the messaging that we put out is, you know, including those— the words are everything, words that indicate this will be a place of belonging. Yeah, this is where cultural officers in a company are critical, setting the tone from the top down on what belonging means and how to foster and cultivate belonging.

And how many exclusionary words— I just want to say how many exclusionary words are used in posting to make people feel like that they might not belong there.

I mean, I was asking Wendy if I think you do have a cultural officer.

I've been appointed the cultural ambassador of our company. And so we've got employees globally. So we've got different, you know, different cultural needs, cultural around the world, cultures around the world, but have been very intentional about— okay, so I have this joy thing behind me for a reason. Is that the definition? I'm going with the definition of joy being glad to be together regardless. So sort of this premise of belonging is like, okay, regardless of what issues and problems and differences there are, The baseline is we're just glad to be together. OK, and now from here, let's, let's go. And every meeting that starts with like, let's don't hop in yet, just, hey, glad to be together. It's good to be together. Now, what are we going to tackle? And some of the things that we've done have been very super silly, fairly brief gatherings of either the entire company on Microsoft Teams or sub-teams. Coming together and just doing something silly like an online puzzle. You can work a puzzle together and go, we're going to take 20 minutes, we're going to come in here, and we're just going to work a puzzle. And you can be— make whatever comments you want and just silly things like that. Or come in and have a topic of the day and just kind of go round robin and no, no business allowed, and then go back out and get back to work. Just small things where you come together And you get to see another side of somebody, get to appreciate somebody from a different angle rather than how they're aggravating you on this certain process. And it helps to foster belonging.

It sure does. Yeah, we do that organically when we see each other face to face and work in an office. You know, there's always the birthday cake or the wedding cake or the, you know, Halloween pumpkin carving and stuff like that. And it's a lot harder to do when you're remote. So I like that. I like that a lot, actually. I'm going to promote that.

Charlie, I don't— again, this is a separate conversation, but I mean, that's sort of what Unio is all about is how do you create these micro experiences, these events that aren't necessarily tied to let's talk about our budget. You know, let's, you know, our revenue is this, or, you know, our— yeah, we have an implementation. Let's connect together.

Now, you know what, there's something— there's, there's the relational circuits in the brain, and when we get all buried into an Excel spreadsheet, our relational circuits turn off. And then if we get into a meeting with someone, I mean, in a way it's like they become an object or they become a task because we're— our relational circuits are off. And they're literally these things that we do can bring our brain back online to remember to be relational even in a difficult task. And that that promotes belonging. It's a shift.

Cool. I like that.

And that's one of the reasons I love the culture at University of Virginia is that they do a lot of effort with that. We have a couple of in-person TA events that they pay for us to come into every year. I get invited to planning and strategy meetings where they want you there face-to-face to have that. They go out and they go out of their way to have those kinds of events that foster belonging and inclusion. I see the joy that when he was talking about people like working here.

Yeah. Every once in a while I have a little bit of fun together.

Yeah, for sure.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, guys, but we are, guys and girls, we've run out of time.

Here I was worried that we wouldn't fill the hour.

Yeah, right.

We're just getting going.

Everybody always— yeah, there was another doozy of a question that I wanted to ask, but I'm gonna have to just leave that, leave that alone for now. Really appreciate you guys' time.

We should do a part 2 of your time to discuss this with us.

I'm gonna replay this more than once. I think it's very valuable information, and I hope it makes a difference, even, even if just one person feels better about it or starts to think about it and, and audits their own organization or make suggestions. It made a big difference. So thank you very much, everyone. And to all of you out there, be kind to yourselves, and we'll see you next week with our guest James Samarkand.