Age prejudice 2

As promised here is a quick run down of a national program the Recruitment & Consulting Services Association is rolling out to promote older workers. First, it has created a special recruitment consultant traineeship for mature workers.

The plan is for 100 people to be trained across Australia kicking off with 45 recruits in NSW and I will be letting you know when applications open here. RCSA executive director Julie Mills said already the response to the program from both sides of the recruiting desk had been fantastic. "Participating recruiters were thrilled with the calibre of the candidates," she said adding that some recruits were so good they were put on as consultants skipping the year-long traineeship. The aim is to get more mature aged consultants into the industry to give a higher level of service to mature aged candidates.

To bolster efforts, the RCSA has also run "cliché-busting" seminars for recruiters around Australia. The seminars were designed to help recruiters "sell" mature age candidates to their clients - employers. "It is a process of myth busting as there were a lot of negative ideas about older workers out there," Ms Mills said on subjects such as "OHS risks, adaptability and flexibility".

The result of the wrong beliefs was a reluctance by recruiters to hire or recommend people over the age of 45. So young! Essentially the seminars showed that hiring mature aged workers made good business sense in every way.  "Facts such as the economic, knowledge, skills and cultural benefits of employing a mature aged worker were really making an impact on the recruiters," said Ms Mills.

The seminars had a 95 per cent success rate with recruiters committing to hiring more over 45s as well as to educating their own clients.

By Kate Southam, Editor of careerone.com.au

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