Do recruiters even care about age?

I’m not at a level I’m proud of for my age. Can I cut some jobs and remove the graduation year or do recruiters not care or check?

Seeing how age had to be added as a legally protected class, it can matter to a certain degree. I'd definitely recommend removing graduation year.

I don’t care and I’ve made it a a point to my Hiring Managers not to care. Both young Older folks have obstacles to overcome in the workforce, the “You don’t have experience” as a young adult makes no sense, and the “Antiquated” views are ineffective. That’s where leadership comes into play. Identity strengths and weaknesses in your team and make them work off each other and teach amongst themselves. However, both young and old must be willing to learn and be a part of the process. I can deal with ignorance because I can teach you and train you, laziness on the other hand I cannot.

I would remove graduation year, remove some of the early jobs and just state “full employment history available on request”, and only have the most relevant recent jobs on your resume. Aim for 2-3 pages, I start with a personal profile which is bullet points before going into job history. I go back about 7-8 years on mine - which is basically my last 3 companies. Multiple roles at each though.

I have always had to submit a copy of my graduating school to employers. They can figure out age from that.

I landed my dream job at 61👍🏼

hot take here but removing your grad year is just as much of a “tell” as leaving it in, but the omission could also imply other things are being misrepresented on your resume. just be honest. if you’re the right fit, it won’t matter

Uh. That shouldn’t matter. Age is just a number….

I’ve been in hiring conversations where there was open age discrimination. Literally people saying I want the young candidate.

My wife is a recruiter and she could care less about age.

Not everyone’s goal is to be “ at a certain stage” by a certain year. Some people switch careers; some care more about the work they’re doing and never ever want to get into management. I wouldn’t worry about that part.

Don't list specific dates. Just list your last ten years of employment, and your accomplishments. As an employer, I care about recent qualifications and training, not high school.

Hi!
I used to work in recruitment and for me age wasn't seen as a problem. In fact, once I placed a Candidate who was 62 in a permanent role!
At the end of the day it comes down to a Recruiter. Just as much as they´re interviewing you, so are you interviewing them. Make sure to have highly qualified and professional people to assist you with your job search.
All the best!

I would not put the year you graduated on your resume. It does date you and people do discriminate.

If I heard an interviewer say the culture was "young and dynamic" (implying that's who they are looking to employ) I'd say "I'm really hoping to work at a company that values a diverse workforce which also includes older, experienced employees. But I can share my skill level at Mario kart if that's important."

It shouldn’t be a factor but it matters more than it should. I am 41 and have only been a manager for about 3 years in my current career path. I think it took me longer to move up because I was older than most of my peers when I changed from sales.

Age isn't supposed to matter in hiring decisions, but often does for different reasons for different fields. Around half of my staff recently asked me to only hire Gen X moving forward, and some of them asking were millennials. In the last ten years, it has been very apparent the different traits, needs, and work ethics of the different generations. Hiring managers also have to evaluate their own abilities to oversee and manage those differences if they have a workforce that covers the different generations. When you have a large percentage of a generation that make it difficult to maintain a regular employee work schedule, a baseline of productivity, while lacking mature interpersonal skills all the while coming with more liability risks...you have to look at and hire for your individual company needs and capacities.

I hide my age but that's one of the most frequently asked questions in interviews so it always makes me nervous. Nearly all interviewers ask questions about race, age and child status so I do what I can to blind my resume.