I am 60 years old and in the midst of a job search in IT customer management. I have 20 years of proven performance with a very large software provider, managing their largest revenue producing accounts. Due to personal issue, I had to take time off, and now I’m working to find a position. My primary concern is age perception in the tech industry. I have had three firms very interested in me with several phone interviews with all three that went very well. This led to me being invited to the HQ for final interviews. These final interviews were positive and I expected an offer. However, once my package was turned over to their HR team, I was immediately rejected. No reason stated for the rejection. I am concerned that my age is a deterrent. Your thoughts are appreciated.

My initial reaction would be to not jump to conclusions and assume that the reason why you are not gaining the offer would be because of your age. They likely knew your age prior to inviting you to corporate, so it is unlikely that that would have been a deal killer at the offer stage. We so often see candidates automatically assume that they are not gaining the offer due to age, race or disability when the fact is they simply are not doing something as well as the competition.

We always do an “autopsy” when a deal falls apart and reverse engineer it to see where the candidate fell out of contention, and I think that would be smart for you to do in order to figure out what is happening, so you can correct it.

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