More companies willing to hire people in their 50s

I was talking to a friend who is an experienced, highly successful saleswoman describing the dysfunction at her current company. Why don't you leave, I asked her? I'm 64, she replied. If I leave, who's going to hire me?

Fortune 500 corporate re-engineering initiatives starting in the 1990s led to widespread layoffs of experienced employees, often with 20 or more years of experience with the companies that had hired them out of college.

For the first time in the post World War II era, people could no longer aim to spend their career with a single large employer. As long-term corporate employment became more volatile, media reports began to describe the challenges of job seekers over the age of 40, who were often avoided by hiring managers.

Age discrimination was illegal, but common.

Fast-forward a few decades. The age at which professionals run into age discrimination has risen considerably.

My subjective opinion, which as an executive recruiter has a lot of data points, suggests that for professionals and executives with a high-value proposition, getting hired into small- to medium-size companies is still viable into their late 50s. Larger corporations, which usually have more structured hierarchies and systems, are less likely to hire someone with 35 years' experience.

Given our society's fascination with youth has in no way abated, why has that age gone up? I can think of several possible explanations.

2. As professional skill sets have become more complex than before, and are subject to frequent obsolescence, companies are less able to discriminate on age when it is so difficult to find highly qualified employees.

3. Training programs aren't what they used to be. It is striking though a positive development that organizations are willing to hire salespeople in their 50s. But older salespeople are more likely to have been trained more rigorously than younger ones. Few corporations still have the great sales training programs that companies like IBM, GE and Procter and Gamble used to be famous for.

Given that economic disruptions are likely to force many employees to work several years longer, the trend of companies being willing to hire older employees will likely continue to escalate.