Leaving Information Off Resume to Combat Age Discrimination

[Citrus]

3. It doesn't matter

You can remove all the vague and remotely possible references to your age, but all it takes is a simple search to discover someone's age. Nearly all employers, with or without an HR department, do searches on applicants who make it past the initial weeding-out process. It's quick and easy and can eliminate the "undesirables". It's astonishingly cheap to do background checks on people if the employer wants to dig a little more. Whether with a simple search or a real background search, it takes only seconds and to the employer, is well worth it.

This is a horrible practice, but there's no way to combat it.

If you want to know what's available online about yourself, just do a simple Google search. And if you want to know what might show in a background check, it might be worth a few dollars at one of the background-checking sites to find out. (KnowX is now owned by LexisNexis and is fairly accurate and comprehensive.)

I honestly don't know what the solution is. Some sources recommend being upfront about age in the cover letter. Other sources say to ignore it completely (and, I presume, to pray they're one of the few who don't check). I've come to the conclusion that it's all crapshoot and all any of us over 50 can do is keep trying.