Say you are a 35 year old manager. All else equal who do you hire; a 25 year old or a 50 year old? Is it age discrimination to hire an individual that you think you'd be better able to manage?
I think this is the crux of it. When most people hire someone straight out of college they're looking for someone with the potential to do great things. Whereas when they hire someone who's 50, they're looking for someone who has done great things. But since a lot of people reach 50 without having done anything especially impressive, applying what hiring managers perceive as being the same set of standards to both age groups leaves older folks less likely to get hired even without any conscious discrimination.
>Better able to manage Managing someone older than one's self isn't hard as long as one's management is competent. They've likely seen a lot before. But it's easy to fool someone younger that they're being managed well. It should be a highlight for a manager that they've been able to manage and retain, even inspire, those older than themselves.
And therefore be a lot less likely to recognize and take seriously the authority of a 25-year-old manager. In fact, in their mind they will probably think they should be the manager.
I've seen it happen and it wasn't pretty.
its age discrimination to imagine a bunch of traits that come with a hypothetical 50 year old that don't come up with a hypothetical 25 year old and then make a hiring decision based on those traits.
BTW, I'm not condoning this situation, I think it is bad. But unfortunately, this is still a very real situation that does influence people's decisions.
(And if all the people who are interviewing you are younger than you probably aren't getting the job no matter how well you do)
You can't substitute experience with intelligence and youth. And people always look at the diversity debate through the lens of the individual (is it fair to the individual?), when diversity could be really beneficial to the team.
If you can't hire and manage people who are better than you at something (doesn't even have to be life experience or anything else age-related), you'll fail as a manager.
It's risky to ignore the real drawbacks of age though: health issues, less mental and physical fitness and flexibility and a theoretically shorter future in the company. In my former company, the best programmer had several strokes in his 50's. He's recovering, but it's a difficult situation.