I vividly recall my first day on the job. There were folks with 10, even 12 years of experience on our office campus. They were easily identified by their ID cards, which had turned light yellow in comparison to our gleaming white ones. They appeared to understand the sector and were highly regarded by both the corporation and newly minted grads like us.
Cut to 2018. Seniority, which was formerly considered an asset, is now becoming a problem.
According to statistics from JobCurators and other employment sites (reference), just 15% of positions listed in 2017-18 were willing to accept candidates with 10+ years of experience.
A stunning 70% of roles preferred persons with less than 5 years of experience, demonstrating employers' obvious preference for hiring younger talent. These figures may be biassed because most positions are advertised by smaller businesses rather than larger ones, but given the overall tone, they may not be far off the mark.
Consider that for a moment. Only 15% of employment in the Indian IT industry are for a group of persons who account for around 50% of the entire workforce (reference). That is a massive demand-supply discrepancy!
So, why are there less employment for seniors now?
Don't be misled: experience is still a valuable asset for occupations that have a lengthier learning curve and require actual experience to advance. Jobs like finance, law, or operations allow you to evolve throughout time by exposing you to a variety of circumstances. As you gain experience in these occupations, you become more efficient.
However, it is now how the new information economy operates, with skills changing every 2-3 years. Knowing older material is less helpful, and might even be a hindrance to learning anything revolutionary quickly.
We want to conduct a study on this topic shortly, however these are the most popular reasons why older citizens are disliked:
Their abilities are no longer useful.
After a certain point, having more years of expertise in anything does not make somebody superior to someone who is younger.
Their learning capacity is lower than that of younger people.
They are pricey in comparison to the value they provide.
They bring behavioural or cultural baggage with them.
Is seniority truly a burden?
Both yes and no.
Every passing year is undoubtedly a liability if one has merely logged greater number of years doing the same thing over and over and learning very little new stuff.
However, if you've been taking chances and learning new things, you'll not only prevent value erosion, but also add a significant amount of value to the table.
Essentially, as you advance in your profession, you will need to have more competence and experience in a certain field. This is the path from "T-shaped professional" to "Comb-shaped professional":
This is no longer a hidden trend. But why are individuals so sluggish to respond?
I don't hold it against the seniors. Perhaps the world evolved too quickly. Like all of the #FutureOfWork trends,
There are two reasons why experienced individuals have been sluggish to respond to this situation:
Denial: The brain's initial emotional reaction to any unpleasant news, denial leads people to hunt for examples where this tendency is disproved. My boss and that coworker are both doing well. There is no need for me to alter my behaviour.
Inertia: I should definitely do something. Someday.
Fear of new things: I'm too old to learn new things like data science or viral marketing.
Fear of failure: What if I fail? It's better to remain with what I'm doing and improve by 10%.
This new item will not compensate me adequately: I got these promotions after a lot of hard work. You can't start over and get compensated like a newbie.
What can you do to maintain your relevance?
Be inquisitive. Keep an open mind. Be unafraid. Narrowing your worldview is the surest way to fall behind the times.
I'll attempt to explore this in more detail in a subsequent post. Please leave a comment if you want that post to be published soon!
References