Ann, it so honorable of you to make yourself available to help like this, bless you. My question is that I believe I have a lot of qualifications and seem to match up well to job postings, but always seem to get the standard, “Sorry, we are looking at others.” Is my age at 57 a real problem in wanting to change jobs? I get that is not legal to age discriminate, but I believe it is happening anyway, in particular when they ask for my college graduation date. I would truly appreciate your candor on the matter. Thanks!

It is so sad to me that so many people fear that their age is keeping them from gaining employment, especially when they are what I consider to be relatively young.

There are many stages to the standard interview process, and it pays to figure out at which point in the funnel your candidacy is being discounted.

In the typical job interview, you apply to a position via either a third party recruiter, or directly to the company. Your resume is then screened and if it looks appealing, a phone interview is conducted. If that goes well, the second step typically involves a live meeting with the hiring manager. Third step is having additional people within the company assess you, and to offer the candidate the opportunity to further investigate the company culture, potentially doing a ride-along, etc. At this point references are typically called, and then the final step is the offer which is either made contingent on a background check or after a background check has been successfully completed.

As a general rule of thumb, failure to get to the first step means your resume needs work, or you are simply applying to jobs that you are not qualified for.

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