The cruel part of ageism
The other day, I decided to run a little social experiment. I sat behind the scenes of a Zoom panel interview with someone over 50 – not to interfere, just to observe. Because I wanted to see what ageism actually looks like in a ‘professional setting’.
Spoiler alert: it’s not loud, it’s subtle – and that’s what makes it worse.
The second the camera turned on, I could feel it. Four smiling faces in perfect lighting, all younger than the candidate’s first email address. They said all the right things: “We’re so glad you’re here!”, but their tone gave away the subtext: ‘We were hoping for someone younger’.
The first question hit like a warning shot: “How do you stay current with technology?” Translation: ‘Prove you’re not a fossil’.
The candidate smiled, calm and confident, explaining how he’d led teams through multiple digital transitions and trained younger staff on new systems. But you could already see the polite nods – the kind people give when they’ve stopped listening and started deciding.
Cheap, green and easy
Ageism doesn’t always sound like ‘You’re too old’. It sounds like ‘You might not fit our culture’. It hides behind phrases like ‘We want fresh energy’ or ‘We’re looking for someone who can grow with us’. Translation: ‘We want someone cheaper, greener, and easier to manage’.
At one point, a panellist who looked barely old enough to rent a car asked, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” The candidate laughed softly and said, “Hopefully working for a company that values experience over assumptions.”
You could feel the silence tighten like the Wi-Fi during a storm. Here’s the truth: people over 50 don’t struggle because they can’t adapt. They struggle because companies mistake experience for obsolescence.
The same leaders who built systems that still keep businesses running are now being told they’re ‘not aligned with the future’. That’s funny: they invented the processes everyone else is now ‘innovating’.
Buzzwords
We keep hearing buzzwords like ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’, but somehow age rarely makes the brochure.
Everyone wants mentorship – just not from someone old enough to remember dial-up. We glorify ‘disruption’, but ignore the people who know how to rebuild what gets broken.
When the interview ended, the candidate smiled, thanked them sincerely, and logged off, fully aware that the rejection email was already drafted.
That’s the cruel part of ageism: the calm dignity of someone who’s been told ‘no’ by people who don’t yet realise how much they could learn from that very ‘no’.
So yes, I ran an experiment and the result was predictable. Ageism isn’t about capability; it’s about insecurity.
The modern job market doesn’t fear older workers because they’re outdated, it fears them because they’re competent.
And nothing terrifies a fragile system more than experience that can’t be automated, the kind of wisdom you can’t fake in a webinar or replace with buzzwords about ‘innovation’ from someone who’s never led through chaos.
Alexander Pyatkovsky is ‘president of vibes’, based in Illinois, USA. He describes himself as “job-search survivor and storyteller”.