Recruiting panels must be taught benefits of hiring older PMETs

Older professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) are usually the hardest hit during economic crises. This is mainly because cutting human resource costs is the fastest way to steady a company’s balance sheet, and older PMETs usually form the middle management, which a company can do away with for the time being.

Companies need the top management to run operations and general workers to continue doing the work. They can hire new and younger PMETs at lower salaries when the market picks up.

Through the Workforce Development Agency and the SkillsFuture movement, the Government tries to help the pool of retrenched PMETs, especially those in their 40s and 50s, and encourage them to go for training and get new jobs. There is also the Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment Practices, which was set up to educate employers on unbiased practices. If all these fall in place nicely, the plan should work beautifully.

Yet, older PMETs still face difficulty getting re-employed.

Setting aside the reasons that some of them are unwilling to be trained or accept lower salaries or positions, the biggest challenge is getting shortlisted for job interviews in the first place.

Hiring panels that shortlist candidates have their own set of requirements. Although age restrictions cannot be stated in job ads, it is still taken into consideration by hiring panels when they decide who to call for interviews.

One reason hiring panels do this is because they are not confident of managing people who are older and more experienced than they are. They also feel that older PMETs may not be as willing to listen to them as compared with younger PMETs.

In spite of the rules and help in place, companies need to take the effort to educate their hiring panels about the benefits of tapping the experience of older PMETs, as well as improving the management skills of their younger corporate leaders through older PMET subordinates.

Failure to give older PMETs a chance threatens not only a company’s survival in a competitive environment but also the health of the overall job market.