Age discrimination in the IT industry in India.. I am so glad I work in the US!

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I ran into this while googling on the average age of IT project managers. I am entering my mid 30s and am glad I work here and not in India!

When even top posts in the Indian IT industry are often held by twenty-somethings, ‘older people’ definitely face barriers if they want to climb the corporate ladder

It is not surprising that a young industry like IT is driven by the power of youth—literally, with a majority of its workforce being in their twenties. Experience and age is respected, but sometimes it becomes a handicap. Many professionals agree that there is an unspoken age bar in the IT industry, though some experts are quick to refute the allegation. While cultural issues and ‘the right fit’ are cited as the logical explanations, the silent bias is a well-known fact in India that people seldom talk about. Many good candidates who are over-experienced (read ‘over-aged’) find that their age becomes a handicap at the recruitment stage.

In the US, the ‘date of birth’ is not mandatory on the curriculum vitae, and neither can anybody discriminate on the basis of age. But the same company which hires people in the US without asking their age has a different mindset when it comes to hiring in India. “In America, it is not uncommon to hire a 35-year-old programmer, but you will rarely find any well-known company doing the same in India,” states Rajaram Agrawal, Managing Director, TalentAhead India. By 35, if a professional does not reach the project manager level in India, it is believed that he lacks management capability. According to Agrawal, during recruitment the common age categorisation for a programmer is less than 30 years for the project leader and 40 years for the project manager. “It is not uncommon to find a 42-year-old getting rejected for the post of a project manager because the delivery head happened to be four years younger,” points out Agrawal.

This bias mostly exists at the recruitment stage and not during promotions. “It exists in all companies in some form or the other. Nobody wants to hire people above 52/53 years, apart from the CEO level. Today, it is easier to get good mid-level talent that is 35-45 years (senior project manager level) than good project leaders. The demand is however high for people of 4-12 years of experience. So if a person with 15 years of experience wants to do a project leader’s job and is very much capable, he is not considered suitable because of over-age,” informs Agrawal.

While companies talk about their hiring policies emphasising culture and ‘fitment’ factors for a candidate, the ‘over-age’ for a position is not spoken of openly, but is an implied factor. Experts agree that the so-called ‘average age’ does not necessarily present the right picture of an organisation’s hiring pattern. “Obviously, there would be more junior-level positions in an organisation, and because junior positions are occupied by younger people, the average age has to come down. If an organisation is looking for a person with 10-12 years of experience, one would be looking at a person in the 32-35 age bracket. Having said that, we believe that there might be an unwritten bias in favour of the younger candidate when there comes a choice between two equally qualified candidates,” acknowledges Dhruvakanth Shenoy, Vice-President, Marketing, Monster Asia.

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The only logical factor for rejecting an over-aged applicant is possibly the higher energy levels of a younger candidate. “But this does not mean that a person who is over 40 or 50 cannot work with the same level of energy or enthusiasm,” reasons Agrawal, adding that since it is not always easy to find the true value of a candidate (through detailed background and reference checks, for example), factors like age are taken into consideration.

But the most important reason, according to Shenoy, is ‘cultural and team fit.’ It is proven that if an employee does not ‘belong’ to the culture, he/she cannot perform to his/her best potential. “A sensible HR professional will not lose a good candidate if the latter meets all the requirements of the job—including team fit. If the candidate does not pass this test, by HR standards, he/she is not a ‘deserving’ candidate.”

Younger professionals are more sought after even though they also cost more than their average peers. “Employers want to hire professionals who have reached their career benchmarks the fastest. There are few of these people around, hence there is greater demand for them as compared to the more-available ‘over-aged’ professionals,” states Kapoor. “If all other qualifications are the same, a younger person will be ranked higher on energy levels. In some cases we have seen that higher-age professionals have also been hired, but these are exceptions who have shown high energy levels and an open mind.”

http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20060...ogylife09.shtml