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I didnt say unemployable but it’s certainly harder the older you get.
I think advertising, in general, is a tough field no matter the age. I have a late-30s friend, with a Master's from some top creative school, with a history of being a creative director, who has always had difficulties keeping a full-time job and finding a full-time job. Over the past couple years, he's spent most of his time consulting and contracting for work. He finally just landed a FT, in-house position with a firm. Same with all of his other advertising friends. Out of all the people I have known, they seem to bounce around the most in their careers. It seems very feast or famine.
Of course, once you move to the executive side, there's always a six figure job for you if you can convince somebody that you bring something. And that's the same for every industry.
If you're in a producer role, then it depends on the industry.
What I noticed is that people more subject to ageism are those whose job performance is subjective rather than objective. Their performance evaluation is basically whatever their boss says it is. When I was an audit manager, one day I was a top performer, the next day a new boss decided I was a lost cause. My work product took too long to read. I was too hands on. I was objective and impartial. All the things my previous boss saw as qualities were now faults. When I was lucky enough to be demoted to an IT specialist, all those issues disappeared. The servers weren't subjective, they either ran or they didn't. A computer doesn't accept or require BS, the input is either right or wrong, it works or it doesn't. A computer doesn't care what you look like. I think jobs where there are clear win or lose results are probably not subject to ageism. Lawyers that win cases, doctors that heal patients, painters, plumbers, carpenters that do quality work, engineers that solve problems, are all areas where experience and skill trumps ageism, because people need correct results.
At tech companies? If you aren't management track by mid-30s to maybe 40, it's tough. I work for a hospital system. We have several people in their mid-60s.
At tech companies? If you aren't management track by mid-30s to maybe 40, it's tough. I work for a hospital system. We have several people in their mid-60s.
Not everyone wants to be a manager. I've known consultants who came in on their own and solved problems who made a thousand dollars a day.
I don't really. notice it in my industry at all. I think once you're eligible for medicare, people might start to ask if you intend to retire soon, but there are plenty of people who continue working without issue and people that are hired near that age, as well.
In the tech start-up culture, there's a preference for fresh grads from college or grad school. The nature of the work favors persons without family obligations, and this again skews towards the young. Consultants, who work only a few hours and charge high dollars per hour, could be of any age. But W2 employees tend to be under 40.
At my former workplace, the situation was much the reverse. There was heavy emphasis on "family values", and by their late 20s, most employees already had spouses and children. Owing to the 1990s "peace dividend", hiring was sparse for at least a half-generation. This made the age-distribution top-heavy, with at the time, lots of people in their 50s and quite a few in their 60s. I am told that this vast wave is now going through convulsions of retirement.
Sometime around age 50 there occurs a bifurcation in our industry, and perhaps in STEM in general. Some incumbents have good reason to pursue positions of higher authority and prestige. These continue to be the septuagenarians who command fine hourly rates for their expertise and erudition. Others feel burn-out or stagnation. These become the early-retirees.
The likely outcome for our start-up contingent is to gain experience, and hopefully some stock-options, throughout their 20s. Then they'll move on, to more stable and conventional employment, where "ageism" is less acute.
Sometimes what it really is about is a company trying to look a certain way to sell the company out to a big outfit. They will work on that for a few years, trimming out older workers so they look a certain way before trying to sell the business. So it may not even be the industry or what you do, but if the company is trying to sell to a big(ger) outfit or not.
My late 50's. Terminated in a round of layoffs at 59. Got a new job at 61. I love it there, they love me, and it's not stressful as were the decades in prior corporate environment.
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