Over 50s jobseekers treated like second class citizens

One in six jobseekers aged over 50 feel that they are treated like second-class citizens when applying for jobs, according to a survey* to determine the views of older jobseekers, carried out by online recruitment agency SkilledPeople.com. The survey also showed that it is common place now for the majority of job applications to go unacknowledged – 70% of those surveyed said that they had received responses to only a quarter or less of their submissions, and 15% of these complained that they had not had any replies at all.
The survey demonstrates clearly that the way a company responds to its job applicants can impact corporate reputation. Of those surveyed, nearly nine in ten (87%) felt badly disposed towards the companies who treated them so badly, more than half (53%) said they lost respect for the companies concerned, one in five (18%) would think twice before buying their products and 16% would go to the length of telling as many of their friends, family and colleagues as possible exactly what they thought of the company in question. Nearly two in five (38%) thought that those recruiters who failed to acknowledge or feedback on vacancies were generally lacking in manners and treated applicants like second class citizens.
It’s not only companies that came in for criticism from jobseekers - Government funded Job Centres came in for some stick too. Job Centres were variously described as patronising, unhelpful, disrespectful and totally failing to understand the value of experienced older workers within the workplace.