At what age did you feel it was harder to get hired?

After 40's. I'm 54 now and holding on to a job I don't like. Been applying for 6 months with no real success.

I’m 63 and still getting interviews

50 - right now!

I didn’t start in the industry until I turned 39, so I have nothing to compare it to.

I remember it beginning to be a struggle at age 40. I applied for a senior producer role one time and the EP who was younger wrote me back and told me I was too 'senior' for the role. It felt like a double entendre. I have also recently gotten on a zoom interview recently with a creative and a department manager. The department manager is about half my age. He took one look at me and literally spent the whole interview working on his computer. I read a study that said it becomes much harder for women to get a job beginning in their mid 30s. In advertising/marketing many people act like you're over the hill once you hit 40. I literally feel like I've been lying about my age my whole life to get jobs and now I'm doing all sorts of facial treatments just to look young. I have a true understanding now of what celebrity females deal with continuously. It seems like I've mainly gotten jobs through people I know since I turned 40. Unfortunately, now they are older, they are losing their jobs so my network has become slim . So it's a really vicious cycle. .

I got hired at age 59 with no issue. It was my first real interview in thirty years.

I’m 47 and unemployed after a layoff. I’m very sure my age is my hurdle in getting interviews and ultimately an offer. Most hiring managers I’ve interviewed with a younger, like 10 years. And they have the audacity to say I don’t have enough experience. I’m at the point where I’ve been unemployed so long that I don’t think I will get hired so my career is possibly over and I have no idea what to do.

I remember when I graduated college, in ‘97. It felt like everybody wanted 3-6 years of experience when I had none. It took me about 6 months to get my first job. I had to relocate to a small market. A couple jobs later, dot com bubble and 9/11 happened and the world came to a stand still. I lost my job shortly before that and had to move back to my mom’s house. I now had the 3-ish years of experience but nobody would hire me. I looked for a job for literally 2 years and nobody was hiring. I figured I wasn’t cut out for this and decided I had to do something else with my life. I took some savings and naively thought I’d open a little business abroad… I’ll spare you the details, but that didn’t work out, lost my savings and was out of a job in a foreign country. I did not want to go back home with my tail between my legs, defeated. I literally would have rather lived under a bridge than face the humiliation. I felt like the biggest failure.
Long story short, I opened the employment classifieds of a literal newspaper (like the paper ones, not a digital kind) and looked for a job. A stranger in a strange land with zero contacts and no clue. But I landed a job at a little independent agency two days later. Luck? Destiny? Fluke? I’ll never know. Turned out my US experience was seen as an advantage hay gave me an edge over other candidates.
After a couple years, I worked my way up to the hottest agency in that country. Every agency was terrified of pitching against us. Met my wife there and eventually, about 5-ish years later I got a job here and came back to the US with her.
Literally as soon as we got here, the housing bubble exploded. The agency I was at started having layoff after layoff. I think there were about 3 of those all agency meetings where you see a large chunk of people missing and then you realize they’re not in the meeting because they don’t work there anymore. At the last agency meeting, the agency’s CEO ugly cried because the people he was laying off were people he considered friends (this was a medium independent agency, started by a good, hard working couple. Don’t think for a minute it was some holding company heartless asshole).
I left that agency before getting laid off. My wife somehow got a job during that time at a larger market and it seemed like there would be better prospects for me. Holy shit, it was tough then… I did find a job, but had to take a pay cut to stay employed. Did a lot of freelance during that time, and little by little the economic climate improved.
Moved around some more, got some more jobs. Had my first kid at age 43. Moved around some more, kid grew, bought a house, etc.
I got laid off about a year ago. Been doing some freelance work but the freelance market as most of you know, is fucking awful right now.
I’ve lived through some really terrible times when I thought the world was ending and my career was over. So, it’s not like this is my first rodeo. I could say it’s different now because I’m 52. But is it? My age doesn’t have anything to do with how bad this industry is doing right now. But I’m old enough to remember that when the housing bubble burst, the advertising industry felt like it was on its deathbed and some creative even made that “Lemonade” documentary.

It could be a fluke or a random coincidence, but the last 2 weeks, suddenly the phone started ringing and my emails are getting answered. I‘m now in the running for two different FT jobs and a much needed freelance gig; all at the same time. This hasn’t happened in a long time.
I want to believe that things are turning a bit. At least for me, and I hope for everyone else as well.

26

Was even harder in the ice age

When you were old enough to have experience. Who wants experience when you can hire cheap deck monkeys?

After 40. Non existent freak.

That’s awesome that you were able to make the switch

42. Ironically also the answer to life, the universe, and everything. If only we knew the question….

It’s only over when you say it’s over.

When as it easy to get hired? Either as a creative or an agency?

After 40, but I’m in healthcare and it was a bit different when I was let go and needed a new gig. My experience actually worked FOR me in many ways. And after I became well awarded within the category I stopped seeing my age as a drawback. Up until now. Pharma shops are increasingly looking for younger talent. And people who don’t look like me.

46 and now 59.

56, laid-off seven months ago from my main client leaving the agency. I’ve had lots of bites and interviews. No gig yet. I have been fortunate to pick up freelance through people I know. It’s still been stressful. Not throwing in the towel yet. But I am looking for what’s after advertising.

I’m 45 and can’t get hired anywhere.

It’s weird. When I got hired at my current gig, the CEO told me she wanted some “grey hair” in the room with clients. I was 47 at the time. Before that, I had a stretch of underemployment when I was 41 and finding a full-time gig then was a definite challenge.

Today, at near 55 it’s a whole new ball of wax, but that may be a function of my own pickiness as it is my age. That said, the age doesn’t help.