A CEO’s post praising older workers goes viral

Here’s the start of a LinkedIn post you don’t see every day, or frankly, nearly any day: “I hired someone over 55.”

That’s how Tom Hunt, the 35-year-old CEO of the British business-to-business marketing company Fame, began what has since become his wildly viral, 95-word LinkedIn post that has amassed thousands of comments and reposts.

AgeWave CEO Ken Dychtwald was pleasantly surprised at how Hunt’s post snowballed.

That’s mostly because Hunt’s post endorsing older workers is so different from the view held by many hiring managers.

More than two-thirds of baby boomers surveyed by the American Staffing Association believe their age puts them at a disadvantage when seeking a job. In a ResumeBuilder survey of 1,000 hiring managers, 34% expressed concerns about hiring candidates over age 60, and 64% of those with an age bias said that not hiring older adults is beneficial to the company.

Hunt conceded that he felt that way before hiring the 55-plus salesperson he wrote about in his LinkedIn post. Hunt stated in the post that until then, he kept thinking:

“He’s too qualified.”

“He won’t be able to do the job.”

“He won’t understand our offering.”

Nevertheless, Hunt offered the job seeker a position, and he accepted. Turns out, Hunt noted, “he was an absolute pleasure to work with” and “made a huge difference to Fame.”

That is why Hunt, whose firm’s average employee age is 37, ended his LinkedIn post with this advice for both employers and hiring managers: “If you want great talent, don’t ignore the ‘experienced.’ "

Instead of looking for what Hunt called “a 20-year-old with 25 years of experience,” hiring managers should focus searches on people with the skills to do the job and values that align with those of the business.

Hunt said the avalanche of responses, overwhelmingly positive and mostly from older adults, floored him.

“It has been awesome,” he said. “This tells me that maybe many older people are experiencing a challenge in finding a role.”

A few HR people and entrepreneurs also reached out to Hunt with support. Hunt said they told him “they also view hiring older people in a similar way, which is great to see.”

Colleen Paulson, a Pittsburgh-based career consultant, understands why Hunt’s post is getting shared so much by older unemployed adults.

“A lot of Gen Xers and baby boomers feel like they’re being overlooked,” she said. “And it’s very frustrating because you feel like you’ve worked so hard for all these years only to be laid off and told that you are overqualified.”

Hunt said one of the impetuses for his post was that a few of his friends who run high-tech startups had told him they were “super against hiring anyone over the age of 40.”

Hunt thinks some employers think older adults won’t work hard and might not be able to work with “some of the modern tools that most places employ.”

Some employers, Hunt added, are guilty of the bias he had: that older job applicants are overqualified and have more experience than needed for the open positions.

“The issue here is that the employer may think they won’t be satisfied with the role, and therefore may leave, incurring further recruitment costs,” Hunt said.

Ofer Sharone, a sociology professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, heard that sentiment when he interviewed recruiters for his book about older, unemployed jobseekers, “The Stigma Trap.”

The recruiters, Sharone said, felt these job hunters were “likely to be unhappy in the job because it’s a job they already held and one they’ve moved up from. So, they’re either too expensive or they’re going to feel like they’re not getting paid enough.”

Hunt now wonders if the popularity of his post means someone should create a job board just for older candidates.

There already are some boards along those lines, such as the ones from Retirementjobs.com, AARP, Seniors4Hire and WAHVE (Work at Home Vintage Experts).

Those kinds of sites might seem unnecessary since employers could be hiring older applicants when they’re hiring younger ones, but Paulson said, “It’s very hard to find employers who come out and say, ‘Hey, I am looking for folks that are experienced.’”

Paulson said she hopes that companies “will be smart and will start to realize the untapped talent that is there.”

Maybe Hunt’s LinkedIn post will help. It concluded with the CEO saying, “Let’s end ageism. Who’s with me?”