It is heartbreaking that more experienced employees feel they need to hide their age by removing dates , as well as removing experience to prevent them from being too experienced. What drives an organization to choose younger people with less experience? Are younger people better workers? Do they grind more? Are they cheap enough? It seems like for every article about how terrible young workers are, there is a similar article about how older people can’t find work. It’s as if companies want to hire an employee that is reasonably mature and trained, then cut them loose before they are too experienced or require too much pay.

Organizations can be better. Diverse thought and practice benefits both the organization and employees. Teams and departments should seek people of varying gender, race, and age diversity. If candidates are too qualified, rebuild positions to take advantage of their expertise. If candidates are too inexperienced, build a training program to help them catch up. The pool of talent is largely driven by local demographics and government programs. Design your organization to take advantage of the people who want to work for you, not the people you wish existed…