Speaker 1: Hi, we are back with our ask me anything segment.
Speaker 1: And today we have a question on ageism. Now, this
Speaker 1: question was sent in by our listener, Kelvin. Kelvin saw
Speaker 1: an Instagram post and it advised not to reveal your
Speaker 1: graduation year in your resume.
Speaker 1: And I guess linkedin as well because he said ageism
Speaker 1: is real. Now, Gerald, is that tip valid
Speaker 2: in terms of ageism? Is it real? I think? Yes,
Speaker 2: it is. It's something that many employers will not admit to,
Speaker 2: but sometimes it's a subconscious bias as well. Imagine if
Speaker 2: your interview panel, all of them are younger than your candidate,
Speaker 2: there's already something that maybe in the
Speaker 2: minds of the interviewer, right? But of course, if you
Speaker 2: are referring to what you put on the resume, whether
Speaker 2: you put your graduation year, my personal view is, you know, what,
Speaker 2: it doesn't really matter whether you put there or not.
Speaker 2: And the reason is because if you put it in there,
Speaker 2: the concern here is people can infer your age, right?
Speaker 2: But there are also many other ways that people can
Speaker 2: infer age from your work experiences the
Speaker 1: first year. They used to
Speaker 1: hard work, they can kind of
Speaker 2: tell all your past job experiences. They can tell how
Speaker 2: many years you have worked. Some people say with me,
Speaker 2: the earlier ones, I'll hide, I'll put the more later ones.
Speaker 2: But then you also can total up the number of
Speaker 2: years you work. I would even say sometimes even from
Speaker 2: the name, you can also guess the age. I
Speaker 1: see like a Lawrence. You know, of which
Speaker 1: vintage.
Speaker 2: There are some names that are very Gen Z and
Speaker 2: there are some names that are a bit older,
Speaker 1: Caen Jayen.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So there are lots of ways to discriminate against people.
Speaker 2: So
Speaker 1: obviously, if this is coming from a point of view
Speaker 1: is that if recruiters really wanted to discriminate you, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of I guess markers that they can
Speaker 1: use to look out for these signs. But ordinarily you
Speaker 1: are saying that it's just a point of reference for them.
Speaker 2: The only advice I will give is for resume writing,
Speaker 2: maybe don't put in your primary school leaving cert year,
Speaker 2: your secondary
Speaker 1: school, primary school,
Speaker 2: maybe you are the kind that got very high scores
Speaker 2: or your primary school is your primary school is very
Speaker 2: branded kind. But typically employers just want to see the
Speaker 2: latest qualification. You have the highest one, maybe the top two,
Speaker 2: maybe your diploma or your JC or something, but you
Speaker 2: don't have to put all the way back because I've
Speaker 2: seen some people who really put all the way in
Speaker 2: primary school and then the year really looks very long
Speaker 2: time ago. Right. So, then that sets, like, ok, yeah,
Speaker 2: too long already. But if you are, let's say getting
Speaker 2: your degree
Speaker 2: or your diploma at a certain year in the past,
Speaker 2: I think people can still accept that if it's the
Speaker 2: only number that so don't put too many numbers. That's
Speaker 2: what I'm trying to say. I think also we need
Speaker 2: to give recruiters more credit for what they do. They
Speaker 2: don't look at every resume and see which year and
Speaker 2: try to penalize people, they try to look for the
Speaker 2: quality of the resume, what the person has done, what
Speaker 2: the person wants to do, what the person is good
Speaker 2: at doing. What's the value that they can bring forward
Speaker 2: in the company? So what they are looking for in
Speaker 2: the resume is coherence.
Speaker 2: Exactly. If I take a seven second glance of your resume, right.
Speaker 2: I know what you can do very clearly. But
Speaker 1: then
Speaker 1: say, for example, if I'm a recruiter and I know
Speaker 1: that the salary I'm going to be paying for this
Speaker 1: job is very entry level. And then I have somebody
Speaker 1: who they are already in their forties, then I know
Speaker 1: that this person is going to try and
Speaker 1: negotiate with me and we're going to get into a
Speaker 1: very long process about how to give more salary or
Speaker 1: even if this person says yes to this entry level salary.
Speaker 1: Because they have had so many years working, they might
Speaker 1: not stay. So I think there is still that consideration
Speaker 1: that I guess some recruiters will
Speaker 1: have.
Speaker 2: Hm. So when they look at resume, they assess the
Speaker 2: value of what they are getting
Speaker 2: and then they also have to look back at, for example,
Speaker 2: what they're willing to pay. What's the budget for the role? Yes,
Speaker 2: they will have that kind of consideration. They might also
Speaker 2: consider things like the fit, for example, your job titles,
Speaker 2: if today you have been leading teams, but this entry
Speaker 2: level role doesn't allow you or doesn't require you to
Speaker 2: lead teams. One concern would be like, would you be
Speaker 2: able to be a team player instead of being a
Speaker 2: team leader? Would you be comfortable with that?
Speaker 1: So, like you say, they will look at your past
Speaker 1: experience rather than the year of graduation? Yes, because the
Speaker 1: year of graduation by the sounds of it doesn't
Speaker 1: really play so big a factor because what else can
Speaker 1: it tell you except the fact that you are young
Speaker 1: or you are older? Yes.
Speaker 2: Correct. So eventually at some point, they're going to find
Speaker 2: out your age anyway. So if today you put it
Speaker 2: in there and if they discriminate you based on that
Speaker 2: age thing, they might as well because you're not going
Speaker 2: to get a job anyway because when they are going
Speaker 2: to see you and you're going to realize that you
Speaker 2: are not quite what I expected you to be. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And they are going to turn you on so it's
Speaker 2: maybe better not to work for the company. Ok. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I would say don't worry too much about putting
Speaker 2: in the numbers of your graduation year.
Speaker 2: What you want to use your resume for the emphasis
Speaker 2: of it is to really present the value of what
Speaker 2: you want to do and make sure it's coherent because
Speaker 2: most people in their resumes, they want to put in
Speaker 2: everything that they have done before. But what we want
Speaker 2: to show is the best bits of what we can
Speaker 2: do and in a manner that is coherent. That means
Speaker 2: once we read in 58 seconds, we know what this
Speaker 2: person can do. So
Speaker 1: in a
Speaker 1: nutshell, very quickly, would you recommend to put in your
Speaker 1: graduation year?
Speaker 2: Yes. OK. I would recommend put in but don't put
Speaker 2: the primary school.
Speaker 1: So remember, don't put your primary school, you love your
Speaker 1: primary school. You don't have to put your primary school.
Speaker 1: So going back to the question that we said early
Speaker 1: on is ageism real. We're going to have an episode
Speaker 1: on that. We're going to talk about workplace discrimination and
Speaker 1: that's coming up soon.
Speaker 1: But if you have a work related question, do continue
Speaker 1: to send to us. We are at CN A podcasts
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Speaker 1: at the team behind the work it podcast is Christina
Speaker 1: Robert Joan Chan, Juani Johari Sa Wen and to Yan Yan.
Speaker 1: Sound mixing is by Cary Lim video by Hanina Amin.
Speaker 1: I'm Jol and I'm Tiffany have a super work week ahead.