Employer double standards plague most job seekers

By Choi Sung-jin

“We are seeking ebullient youths who also have abundant experience.”

These are typical age-related double standards eight out of 10 job hunters say they have experienced at meetings with would-be employers, a survey shows.

In the survey of 1,600 job applicants by Job Korea, a job-seeking portal, 79.9 percent said they have “experienced the businesses’ dual standards with respect to applicants’ age.”

For instance, many employers (62.8 percent) were seeking young talent full of spirit but point out their lack of experience. Some managers (38.2 percent) said the applicants are too old to be new recruits while too young and inexperienced to be hired as career workers.

Yet others (23.6 percent) hired relatively older applicants, highly rating their sense of responsibility but regarding the recruits as younger when grading their ranks.

In other examples of age-related double standards, 18.6 percent of employers wanted rich work experience but rejected applicants for reason of age; 16.5 percent said the applicants were too old to seek jobs but too young to start their own businesses; and 5.3 percent said the applicants were too young to retire but too old to remain in the workplace.

Despite the conflicting job markets, 74.4 percent of job seekers replied “age is competitiveness,” or the younger, the more competitive. Those who answered a young age is more competitive accounted for 83.5 percent of respondents, overwhelming the 16.5 percent who thought an older age was.

Two-thirds of respondents said their age has blocked their employment. Especially, 95.9 percent of job hunters in their 40s and 95.8 percent of people in their 30s had the experience of failing to be hired because of age, and even 59.9 percent of 20-something job seekers had a similar experience. Women had more difficulty in landing jobs than men because of age, at 68.4 percent to 61.5 percent.

To get over age as a handicap, 25.2 percent of job hunters stressed their high school grades or various work experience, followed by 10.3 percent who demonstrated youthful sense, 8.9 percent who changed their style to look younger and 4 percent who attempted to learn trendy things on SNS.

Job applicants in their 20s and 30s emphasized their job-related ability while older ones tried to change their style, the survey showed.