Recruiting Future is a podcast that helps Talent Acquisition teams drive measurable impact by developing their strategic capability in Foresight, Influence, Talent, and Technology.
This episode is about Talent.
While we’re seeing a growing awareness of ageism, the reality is that it is regularly ignored as an inclusion factor. The impact of this is staggering. AARP estimates that ageism costs the US economy $850 billion in lost GDP annually, and research shows that intergenerational teams consistently outperform age-segregated ones in terms of productivity and innovation. Yet, unlike other forms of discrimination, age bias is openly accepted in hiring via things like age-coded job descriptions and ATS systems that filter by graduation dates.
So what will it take for organizations to recognize that age discrimination isn’t just morally wrong – it’s actively destroying their competitive advantage?
My guest this week is Maureen Wiley Clough, host of the ‘It Gets Late Early’ podcast and advocate against ageism on a mission to expose this universal form of discrimination. In our conversation, she reveals practical strategies for both employers and job seekers to combat age bias while building truly inclusive workplaces that work for everyone.
In the interview, we discuss:
• Is ageism getting worse?
• The $850 billion impact on GDP
• How ageism is baked into some recruiting processes
• Why proving age discrimination in the US is so difficult.
• What should TA do to combat ageism?
• The power of intergenerational teams and mentorship
• AI’s impact on entry-level jobs and Gen Z’s involuntary disconnection from the workplace
• Strategies for older job seekers
• What should the future look like?
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00:00
Matt Alder
Is ageism at work getting worse or are we becoming more aware of it? Either way, it has a devastating impact on employees and a significant financial impact on employers. So why do we just seem to accept ageism in the workplace? And what needs to happen to change that? Keep listening to find out. Support for this podcast comes from smart recruiters. Are you looking to supercharge your hiring? Meet Winston, Smart Recruiter’s AI powered companion. I’ve had a demo of Winston. The capabilities are extremely powerful and it’s been crafted to elevate hiring to a whole new level. This AI sidekick goes beyond the usual assistant handling all the time consuming admin work so you can focus on connecting with top talent and making better hiring decisions.
00:52
Matt Alder
From screening candidates to scheduling interviews, Winston manages it all with AI precision, keeping the hiring process fast, smart and effective. Head over to smartrecruiters.com and see how Winston can deliver superhuman results. Hi there. Welcome to Episode 715 of Recruiting Future with me, Matt Alder. Recruiting Future is a podcast that helps talent acquisition teams drive measurable impact by developing their capability in foresight, influence, talent and technology. This episode is about talent. While we’re seeing a growing awareness of ageism at work, the reality is that it is regularly ignored as an inclusion factor. The impact of this is staggering. The AARP estimates that ageism costs $150 billion in lost GDP annually, and research shows that intergenerational teams consistently outperform age segregated ones in productivity and innovation.
02:16
Matt Alder
Yet, unlike other forms of discrimination, age bias is openly accepted in hiring via things like age coded job descriptions and ATS systems that filter by graduation dates. So what will it take for organisations to recognise that age discrimination isn’t just morally wrong, it’s actively destroying their competitive advantage? My guest this week is Maureen Clough, host of the It Gets Late early podcast, an advocate against ageism on a mission to expose this universal form of discrimination. In our conversation, she reveals practical strategies for both employers and job seekers to combat age bias while building truly inclusive workplaces that work for everyone. Hi Maureen and welcome to the podcast.
03:06
Maureen Clough
Thanks for having me, Matt. I’m so glad to be here.
03:09
Matt Alder
An absolute pleasure to have you on the full show. We had a conversation on the podcast I recorded at HR Tech last year and I just wanted to have a proper conversation with you and dedicate the whole show to our conversation rather than just a couple of Minutes.
03:24
Maureen Clough
I love that. Thank you so much for having me back. I had a blast on the show floor there at HR Tech, so thanks again.
03:29
Matt Alder
So for people who are hearing your voice for the first time, please introduce yourself and tell us what you do.
03:35
Maureen Clough
I’m Maureen Wiley Clough. I also go by Mo. You may have heard me on my podcast. It gets late Ageism in the Workplace, where we really dive into the often completely ignored subject of ageism that is yet rampant across all workplaces and societies. Society. You might also have heard me on the Chad and Cheese podcast. I am a co host. I started in January of this year. And so I’m. I’m on there every so often given my. Given my takes on the news of the day, and it’s been a blast. But yeah, I really jumped into the whole ageism topic when I was 37 years old at my tech company and my colleague referred to me as a Dino. And I was like, excuse me. And then I looked around and I was like, wait a minute, he’s kind of not wrong here.
04:24
Maureen Clough
Like, where are all the older people? Because what I recognized was there really weren’t people over the age of 40 unless they were in sort of the C suite, VP, senior director, that sort of realm. And I just thought to myself, you know, how does this work? Because we’re all getting older and do people just like, age out of the company? And if so, why is no one talking about this? And I realized that once I started these conversations behind the scenes, everyone was thinking about it and worrying about it, and people like me were kind of like ambitious in some part because we’re fearful. It’s like the self preservation. I had this sort of recurrent thought, you know, oh, I better get to senior director by 40 so that I can secure my seat at the table.
05:11
Maureen Clough
And it just struck me as absolute lunacy that no one was having this conversation out loud, really. Especially in the age of diversity, equity and inclusion and belonging and age being the one thing that we all actually share. So it’s the universal ism, right? So that is what sparked my interest. And, and so I decided, you know, why not start a podcast? Let’s do it.
05:31
Matt Alder
Absolutely. So first question to you. Is ageism getting worse or am I just noticing it because I’m getting older? That’s the kind of the thing. Is it getting worse or you think it’s always been there?
05:43
Maureen Clough
You know, I think it’s absolutely always been there. I think it’s one of those isms that until it actually hits you’re not seeing it coming because I’ll speak for myself and I think this actually is accurate for many. I kind of think of aging as something that happens to other people, but not me. Like I’m still 29 in my mind, but the truth is I present as not 29 because I’m 42. Right. So this aging thing, it’s happening to all of us, but we kind of have this cognitive dissonance where we don’t really actually accept it for ourselves. And I think that’s probably really tied to really our understanding of mortality and how hard it is to come to terms with that. And, and this is a visual representation of that. Right. We’ve also been inculcated with these messages since essentially birth.
06:24
Maureen Clough
Getting older is like a thing you don’t want to do. And particularly for women. I mean, we worship at the fountain of youth. We’re told that we should buy anti Aging creams. 10 year olds are going to Sephora now. Like, it’s ridiculous. So it’s certainly been driven into us, I will say that. So, so I think it’s always been there. I do think that actually on the flip side, it’s probably getting better in the sense that there’s a lot more awareness that’s building. I, I feel like this topic is actually coming up increasingly, even in mainstream media and on the silver screen. So midlife characters are not relegated to the sidelines, they’re the main characters. So there’s this sort of a momentum that is building that’s around like, hell no, I’m not done. Don’t you dare put me in the corner. Right?
07:09
Maureen Clough
And don’t you marginalize me because I’m over the age of 40. It’s not the end. I see that increasingly and obviously I have confirmation bias. I’m looking for that kind of stuff, right, Given the subject of my podcast and all my content. But I really do believe there’s a growing awareness about it. And I also believe that because Gen Z is experiencing a ton of discrimination and bias on the basis of their age and inexperience, that they are awakening to the fact that ageism is a thing and it’s something that’s going to come for the younger people as well as the older people. So I think there’s sort of this equalizer aspect that’s happening right now. So I’m a little bit, I’m frankly a little bit hopeful about this shifting.
07:48
Maureen Clough
I, I don’t think it’s ever Going away though, ageism is just like embedded in our brains and it’s I again, I believe, tied to the fact that we’re mortals.
07:58
Matt Alder
No, 100%. I completely get what you’re saying about. It is something that is talked about more, but it is still rampant in the workplace. I mean, I know lots of kind of personal examples of kind of horrendous experiences because of ageism. What is it in the workplace that causes it, do you think? What is the mindset that kind of goes on? Because experience has always been good. People have always looked for people with experience. What is it that. Where’s the disconnect here that’s causing this?
08:27
Maureen Clough
It is so wild because experience is something that typically you feel is sought after in the workplace. People say you want those with experience, but then you are presented with experience candidates and often it becomes a question of, well, is this person overqualified? Right. That’s, that’s one of those coded words that in some cases can actually indicate ageism. Right. And a bias against candidates due to specific age factors. But it is a massive problem in the workplace. And I think it starts with the fact that people don’t even know it’s wrong. Right? Like ageism is so accepted in our society. There are countless jokes about them. And by the way, I have a great sense of humor. So like I, a joke here and there is fine. But the reality is that behind those jokes lies this real unconscious subconscious bias, right?
09:13
Maureen Clough
Where people think that older is worse, right. And that younger is better. Again, there is ageism against the young. So we’ll touch on that later. But there, this is really entrenched in our stereotypes. And it comes out in all sorts of different ways in the workplace because we bring ourselves to work so you can have the best policy at your organization, the most ironclad DEIB policy. And, and you still will find ageism, right? That’s in there because we bring ourselves work so people don’t know it’s wrong. People casually, it’s the only form of discrimination, I think that is like really openly accepted. And it’s really, it’s a shame because it is a scourge on our society. It really. Ageism causes incredible amounts of personal pain that really radiates beyond the individual and goes out into the community, their family, so on and so forth.
10:04
Maureen Clough
And actually AARP did a research study that quantified the extent to which the government is losing out on GDP and they estimated that ageism costs $850 billion in lost GDP just based on just that discrimination in the workplace. So it’s real. People are facing it. It’s, it’s really, again, I think it goes back to those stereotypes that we all have and our fear of aging. Right. There’s anxiety around aging.
10:35
Matt Alder
Yeah. And so drilling down on that GPGDP figure there, what’s the impact for employers? What are employers missing? What are they, what’s the impact on them from ageism driven practices in their recruiting or their HR or whatever it is?
10:53
Maureen Clough
Yeah, there’s a lot that they’re missing out on. In fact, intergenerational teams are known to be more productive, more innovative and have better outcomes. And so when you actually employ people across a wide swath of age, you’re gaining so much. You’re gaining mentorship, you’re gaining the ability to see around corners, you’re gaining just even life experience that people bring to the table. And they can help inform people who are maybe coming into the game with some really new insights on some of the latest technology. Let’s go with AI, right. With some real world examples and institutional knowledge that’s so critical. Right. And we don’t have a lot of organizations out there with an emphasis on mentorship. And that’s a huge miss too. Mentorship goes both ways between the older person and the younger person.
11:39
Maureen Clough
I learned a ton from my Gen Z social media coach, right. He, he teaches me stuff on the daily. He’s incredible. And it, so it really does go both ways, but it’s something that’s in short supply and Gen Z is being completely left behind. You know, they’ve come of age professionally in a time where a lot of them, if you’re doing white collar work, you may have either a hybrid workplace or a fully remote workplace. And so all of the customs and work norms and professionalism that I learned, for example, as a millennial, being shoulder to shoulder in the workplace with my peers, they’ve missed out on that. And yet we’re maligning them for quote, you know, not being professional and so on and so forth. It’s really deeply unfair.
12:21
Maureen Clough
So it’s even those little customs and workplace norms that are not being passed down and you know that is a loss as well. So companies just, and not to mention companies are saying that there’s a talent shortage and they can’t find anyone. Well, if you’re proactively either pushing people out, you know, leveraging some sort of ATS tool and pushing People out based on a certain age that they are. Right. Like that’s a problem. Right. You’re not looking at the full scope of candidates, and you’re missing out on the opportunity to bring about people with a ton to offer organizations. So it’s really just. It’s such a mess.
12:59
Matt Alder
And what are some of the worst examples you’ve seen?
13:01
Maureen Clough
I had a. I had a woman come on my show and she finally was able to speak. So first of all, I want to point out, like, age discrimination is one of the hardest types of discrimination cases to prove the standard of proof, the burden of proof is higher than that of other forms of discrimination, and that is due to a Supreme Court ruling back in 2009. So you have to have age be the quote, but for cause of your discrimination claim, meaning that you can’t have a mixed motive. It can’t be, you know, throw everything in the kitchen sink at the wall there and get an age discrimination claim passed. It has to be the sole reason, which is so infuriating because it’s. It should be lessened to the burden of proof of other forms of discrimination, if you ask me.
13:43
Maureen Clough
Anyhow, so age discrimination, super tough to prove. I’m totally forgetting. I’m like, maybe this is perimenopause. Speaking of age, I’m totally forgetting my train of thought and the question that you just asked me. So please, examples of ageism. Oh, yes, I got you, actually. Hilarious. Okay, so I had a woman who came on all of this, all the reason I brought up the age discrimination being tough to. To actually get. Get ruled in your favor is that people have. There’s a chilling effect on people. People are afraid to speak out. It can harm people’s career. And so unfortunately, sometimes there are people who are unwilling to go on the record and speak about what has happened to them in terms of the discrimination they’ve faced. And in one such case, a. A woman finally was able to.
14:29
Maureen Clough
To come forward publicly and speak about this because she was able to actually get the exit and. And rece she had earned over the course of her. Her time at this company. And once she got that, she was like, all right, I’m. I’m ready to go. And this woman, her name’s Amelia De Anzica, she came on my show when she was 42 years old. She was brought into a room after multiple quarters of outperforming her goals, actually having been told, given promotions, having been given additional equity. I mean, what company does that? No one just gives you extra Money. That’s outrageous. Right? So she was just absolutely killing it. She was brought into a room, her superior had flown someone in from another country. And this person said to her, we just need some fresh blood in your seat.
15:15
Maureen Clough
And they, Yep, they ousted her right then and there. There was no other reason other than fresh, by the way, is coded language for young. If, if you don’t know. So coded language abounds. Hungry, you know, energetic, all of that. Digital native ninja. All of that. That’s coded language, right? And so she was ousted. And, and she was like, that was 100% age discrimination. And she went to every lawyer, all the best lawyers in the Silicon Valley area, and to a person, they told her, honey, if you ever want to work again, you better not do a single thing with this because your name will be mud in this town.
15:51
Maureen Clough
And so she had to be silent and, you know, suffer the indignation and the humiliation of having to walk out of a company that she helped build brick by brick so that she could be replaced by someone like 15 years younger than she was. That was the only reason was her age. So that was egregious. And, you know, it’s just heartbreaking because these things, they happen all the time. Again, because people don’t even think it’s wrong. People just casually throw about, oh, you know, you’re old, or he’s not going to be able to learn new things because he’s older, or, oh, this person won’t be able to pick up this role because it involves AI. There’s a huge bias against older candidates because of the concept that they won’t be able to pick up AI. It’s, it’s wrong. It’s. It’s 100% wrong.
16:38
Maureen Clough
They can, they will and they do. And yeah, there’s a lot in the mix there. But, yeah, there’s just. There are horrible forms of ageism, really egregious cases like the one I just described. And, you know, things like, things that you wouldn’t even necessarily see unless you were actually looking for it and proactive about trying to suss it out. For example, there was a case, it was in 2024, I believe, and the EEOC nailed iTutor group because iTutor group had actually systematically been rejecting candidates who were applying to roles at the company at age 55 if they were women and age 60 if they were men. So they were filtering them out immediately. So you don’t even know that you’re not getting this fair Shake.
17:24
Maureen Clough
And as I’m sure your listeners all understand too, Workday has just been targeted with a class action lawsuit on the basis of age discrimination in its AI. Hired AI or Hired Score AI, I think it is tool which ranked candidates and so that Workday does not agree. Workday denies all those allegations. So it remains to be seen what will happen with that case. But there have been precedents like that Itutor Group and one other with Amazon. But it’s going to be fascinating to see what happens there. But I will say like all sorts of ATS systems out there routinely request the graduation date of applicants and in some cases it’s hard coded so you can’t actually answer a date earlier than say like 1990. Right. So they filter out people automatically in that regard.
18:14
Maureen Clough
And when I’ve flagged that, you know, my listeners will reach out and say, hey Maureen, I saw this. And when I’ve gone and tested it myself, sometimes they’ll go to the company and to a company they all say, oh, that’s a coding error or oh, that was for an internship. Which, to which I say, like anybody of any age should be able to be an intern. But that, let’s leave that there. But it’s something that, basically what I have to say on that is, I’m sorry, it is not, it’s not all a mistake like these are deliberate, these are deliberate actions by companies. And at the federal level you are able to ask for age identification markers, but at some state and local levels that is illegal behavior. So it’s just, it’s kind of a mess, Matt.
18:56
Maureen Clough
It’s a, it’s a real bummer because we’re, this is one thing we all share. We’re all getting older.
19:00
Matt Alder
Yeah, absolutely. And what’s your advice to employers? What can employers do? How should they think? What should they watch out for?
19:08
Maureen Clough
Employers need to start with actually caring about age as an inclusion factor. PWC did a study and 92% of employers miss age as one of those subject matters. Right. It’s, it’s not just not on the agenda at all. And there are ways to pull it have to be so, you know, massive. It can really start with something as easy as going through your job descriptions and making sure that you don’t have this coded language that basically, you know, will filter out older candidates. Right. Not having qualifications, where you’re asking for people from, you know, from six to eight years of experience or something like that. Right. Like how about using six plus, right. That works. And, and so there are things like that you can do and then you can also have conversation within ergs around you stage of life.
19:59
Maureen Clough
And so creating safe spaces for employees to go and have the conversations about the subjects that are really important to them in those moments of their lives. And it provide areas of connection. There’s also the possibility of creating intergenerational mentorship opportunity, which companies really should be doing anyway. Because right now, I mean, a crazy number of people in Gen Z said they hadn’t spoken to a person over the age of 50 in their organization in over a year. It was a LinkedIn study that came out and it’s like, guys, think of all that is lost by not having the ability to collaborate with people across your organization. You know, putting people who are less experienced with people who’ve been there, done that.
20:38
Maureen Clough
That’s like a treasure trove of value if you can unlock right there, it’s in front of your face and you’re just not doing it. And again, I think a lot of this has to do with just not having enough connection. Right. And so if you can connect people of different generations and demystify what it’s like being older or being younger and allow people to make these relationships happen, I think there’s going to be a lot more mutual respect and a far less kind of othering which happens. There’s just an insane amount of intergenerational warfare right now and it’s really hurting everybody. It’s, it’s like, come on guys, let’s do better.
21:22
Matt Alder
So I want to come back and talk about Gen Z in a second, but for now let’s focus on, I suppose, Gen X, older millennials, people at that older end of the scale who are kind, very much in the firing line for some of this at the moment. What would your advice be to someone who is, you know, looking for a job? I mean, how should they present their experience? What should they, how can they deal with all of this is going on in a kind of proactive way?
21:49
Maureen Clough
I think first and foremost what you have to do is accept that you probably will face some ageism, but basically set your mind to controlling what you can control and changing the way you approach your search. Right? So instead of seeing your age as a liability, see it as the asset it is. Because the reality is if you’ve been doing work for a long time, you have a crazy network. I mean, if you’ve just been doing life for a Long time you have a crazy network and that’s a boon to you in your job search that frankly I feel bad for Gen Z that they don’t have. We’ll get back to that later.
22:19
Maureen Clough
But if you can draw strength from all of the accomplishments you’ve had over the course of time and draw excitement by the fact that you can actually tap into this massive network of yours, that includes and extends to people like past colleagues, past bosses, past partners, past vendors, I mean, and all down to you know who you know at your kids little League. Right. Literally. A friend of mine was working on finding a job for over a year. And how did he find his job? Through a connection of his son’s little league coaches. Right. Like it’s really, seriously, that is a network too. And we forget about that.
22:55
Maureen Clough
But I think truly it’s rewiring your brain to see your age as an asset and to recognize that you’ve gone through some things, you know, some things you’ve done, some things that are pretty cool and really just go forward with that confidence. And that I think is the single most important thing you can do. I think you also have to recognize this is a thing people will judge you based on your age. It’s not fair, it’s not right, but it’s real. And so know you’re going to face it. And if you need a job right away because you need to pay the bills or whatever. I hate to say it, but you should probably take some early experience, maybe your college graduation, high school graduation off your resume. I really don’t like that I have to say that.
23:35
Maureen Clough
But it is just plain good advice if you need something quickly. If on the flip side you have the privilege of being a little choosier, put it all on there. You want to work for a company who wants you for you and who is not going to have these sorts of biases against you for having breathed longer than other people. That’s so absurd. So it really depends on your personal circumstance, what I advise there. But you know, I’d love to be in a world where you can just go full tilt and say like here I am with 45 years of experience or whatever it is, but we’re not there. And frankly, I don’t know that ageism ever is going to go away. So know about it, know that you will experience it. But don’t give up before you start.
24:16
Maureen Clough
I’ve heard so many people say, oh my gosh, no one wants to hire a 55 year old. I’m like, okay, well, with that attitude, you’re not going to get anywhere. You know, like that’s the reality. And so just do what you can to help yourself out and really just draw strength from all that you’ve done in the past and really put together. What I call a Win wallet is, you know, go through all of your past accomplishments professionally, take some of your favorite compliments, right? Put them in a place that’s accessible, draw strength from that. When you are going and you are on the interview circuit, it you need to have these sort of stories at the ready. And we all have bad days.
24:54
Maureen Clough
Sometimes you just want to go to the Win wallet and check out something nice that someone said about you and that can give you a little boost, right? So it really comes down to stuff like that. Just be confident, help yourself out, do what you can.
25:05
Matt Alder
I think one of the other things is that kind of ageism aside, the world of work has changed and how you find a job has changed. AI is continuing to kind of drive that change. So I’m seeing a lot of people who are kind of, you know, being laid off maybe for the first time in their care and they’re kind of struggling to get their head round how things have kind of shifted since they last looked for a job and how things are shifting in the. In the future. How. What advice would you give people in terms of sort of, you know, pivoting their thinking, looking for jobs in different industries or different areas, which obviously is, you know, is a very hard thing to do. How can people think differently in a way that’s going to be sort of beneficial to them?
25:47
Maureen Clough
Leading with curiosity is the best advice that I can give anyone when it comes to this. It’s just full stop, very hard. If you haven’t been interviewing for a long time, if you’ve been in a role for a long time and you’re facing a job loss for the first time, that’s just a really tough gutting moment for sure. So give yourself a moment to absorb that and know you’re not alone, because lots of people are there. But from that point forward, I really think that you need to, especially if you’re.
26:15
Maureen Clough
Especially if you’re engaging the thought of moving into a different industry and doing a career pivot of any sort, going into it with a curious mindset, trying to find people who are doing the thing that you would like to do, or in the arena where you would like to build your next steps and asking all sorts of questions. So doing those informational meetings Those coffee meetings, you know, trying to figure out as much as you can. Gosh, there’s so many opportunities for people to learn online. I mean, it’s democratized access to so much knowledge. You can go on YouTube and learn just about anything these days. And so get really curious, get really open and get proactive. And there will be days where you’re going to be miserable and it’s going to feel like climbing Mount Everest and know that’s coming too.
26:56
Maureen Clough
But just get out there as much as you can. And hopefully you’ve seen this coming at some level and you’ve started the networking process. It’s always easier to network before you really need something. And so keeping that mindset of always keeping in touch and keeping connected with people as much as possible is really important. But if you’re already there, you know, give yourself a moment, absorb it, but then just get really curious, start learning. Definitely go and check out AI. I know there is a lot of reluctance on behalf of quite some people of all ages to get engaged with AI. I know it took me a minute, I’ll be honest. And you know, I probably still should be using it a heck of a lot more than I am.
27:39
Maureen Clough
But, you know, especially when we have understanding that there is this stereotype against older people that they can’t adapt to change, that they don’t want to learn new things, that they don’t know how to deal with tech. Right. Like a lot of people think that AI is not something older people do. And so if you are older, do not give people more reason to embed that stereotype in their brains. Do not play into that. Do the opposite, please, for the sake of all of us, go and learn AI. And, and you don’t have to be a master of it. Just go and get a little bit familiar with it and just know enough to be dangerous. I would also say what employers around any industry want to see, I would imagine, more than anything else is the mindset of curiosity and continuous learning.
28:23
Maureen Clough
So it’s not enough to just merely go do these things on your own in the shadows. You need to have the ability to place these things on your resume and on your LinkedIn profile. So I advise that people go and they take courses, they take certifications, and they post them on their LinkedIn profile or on their resume that demonstrates continuous learning and a desire for change. And it helps disavow people of those absurd stereotypes. And it’s just going to help you in the interview process overcome any objections about your inability to change or your lack of desire to move up.
28:57
Maureen Clough
Because there’s also a lot of bias against older candidates for the concept that, oh, they won’t be ambitious or they don’t want to, you know, stay on at the organization for too long or you know, maybe they’re just going to be stuck in their ways and aren’t going to adapt with the times. So give them like demonstrable evidence that’s not you. Right.
29:14
Matt Alder
And so sticking with that AI theme, one of the things that I think lots of people are now noticing about AI is it’s either taking away or has the potential to take away the kind of tasks that sit in entry level jobs. Which means that we’ve already spoken about Gen Z not necessarily having access to the office to learn some of the skills that have been traditionally associated with the world of work, but you know, in fact difficult getting started at all because AI is potentially replacing them before they’ve even hit the workforce. How do we need to think about that? What do employers need to think about when it comes to Gen Z and this next generation entering the workforce?
29:54
Maureen Clough
Well, first of all, I just want to say my heart breaks for Gen Z with all of this because it’s just, I mean, talk about a tough job market to be entering and a tough timeline to be starting some of your first professional experiences. So want to say that, you know, I really think that what is going to change here is sort of, well, I guess a lot. I wish I had a crystal ball here. I guess I should say it’s really tough to ascertain how employers are going to think about early experience now and what Gen Z is going to have to demonstrate in order to get those jobs. Because a lot of these jobs, as you said, they’re being outsourced or completely replaced by AI. And so a lot of the experience level that they request is like five plus years.
30:41
Maureen Clough
So what do you do if you’re early? Right. I think Gen Z’s best shot at demonstrating excellence and acumen is to sadly, again, let’s go back to AI is to demonstrate their aptitude with AI tools and show what they can do, show their curiosity, complete projects and show that they are continuously learning and excited about how they can grow their careers to sort of hopefully replace some of that required five years of experience that they won’t have. And I hate that I’m saying that by the way, because it sounds like a lot of that would be unpaid labor and I really dislike that as a concept, but I think, you know, anything Gen Z can do to show their drive for excellence and any sort of projects that they’ve completed, which can then be equated to experience because it is experience is helpful.
31:33
Maureen Clough
And I mean, so I guess I’m looking at from the flip side of, you know, what can Gen Z do to help themselves versus what can employers do? To think about this, I mean, I don’t know where employers are going to go with this. It’s just, I think it’s so uncharted. And I mean, you even think of the fact that employers are now mandating AI usage and yet not giving anybody a guidebook or a roadmap on how to do it. They’re like, hey, everybody, use AI. Show us how you’re doing it, by the way, because we want to know, like best practices because what’s happening, right? So it’s kind of like it’s just the wild West.
32:03
Maureen Clough
So truly, I’m not sure what I would advise to employers on the Gen Z problem other than to say we know that intergenerational teams complete better, you know, productivity, do more innovation. We know that you’ll actually make more money if you employ people across the spectrum of ages and that will mirror the customers that you have and the future customers that you have. So it should just dang good business practice to employ younger people as well. There’s just. They’re so strong. I love Gen Z. I think they’re fantastic. And it, you know, I love boomers too. So like, let’s just, let’s stop disrespecting people on the basis of when they started breathing and you know how many birthday candles they have. It’s ridiculous.
32:42
Matt Alder
Yeah, I was going to ask you about Den Alpha, but I think that actually, I, I think they’re actually writing the AI at the moment. I think they’re going to rule the world. I just.
32:49
Maureen Clough
Exactly. Who knows what’s going on, man? Wild old times. Sci fi Dystopia. Yeah. Bizarre.
32:57
Matt Alder
Maureen, thank you very much for talking to me.
33:00
Maureen Clough
Thanks for having me.
33:02
Matt Alder
My thanks to Maureen. You can follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can search all the past episodes at recruitingfuture.com on that site. You can subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Recruiting Future Feast, and get the inside track on everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
