‘An HR cop out’: Why older workers should ignore the ‘you’re over qualified’ line

Sive, who works two days a week from home, hoped to make that five days a week but her employer wants her in the office for at least three days. And so the commute continues.

In the meantime, she has searched for jobs closer to home but so far has had no luck (see 10 tips to help with job hunting at the end of this story). She and her partner can manage on their superannuation but only just. Any unexpected expenses, or a holiday, would break the budget. And yes, she’s encountered ageism – even in her 50s when she was applying for roles before landing her current position.

Hard workers and loyal

Ask employment and recruitment experts and they’ll invariably agree. Older workers are reliable, committed and loyal, cope well with stress, bring experience and a strong work ethic to the workplace, are valuable mentors to younger employees, and are not glued to their mobile phones. They stay in jobs longer than young people and have a broader range of skills.

Ask those in the 50 or 60-plus age group and they, too, will agree. But they’ll also say they often don’t get to the interview stage and, if they do, they’ll get the “you’re-over-qualified-for-this-role” response.

HR leader Chris Wright loathes the line, calling it “an HR cop-out”. Wright, head of human resources for accountancy firm Baker Tilly Staples Rodway, questions why if a person has chosen to apply for a job they need to be told they are over-qualified.

“I refuse to use it because it’s insulting,” he says. Those “HR one-liners” can affect people’s thinking and their view of themselves, and that’s wrong, he says.

Wright has a particular interest in New Zealand’s ageing workforce. For a start, he’s reaching retirement age himself. And he delved into the subject while writing a piece for the company’s website in which he talked about “the great unretirement”, driven in part by economic necessity but also to foster social connections, keep physically and mentally active, stay busy, and have a sense of purpose.

Apart from facing a rising cost of living, including rents and higher mortgage rates, Kiwis are living longer, meaning their retirement savings need to stretch further. Many will need to keep working after the age of 65. Already around half of all New Zealanders aged 65 to 69 are employed and Stats NZ predicts the number of 65-plus workers will rise from 195,000 (in 2021) to double that by 2071.

The reasons are becoming increasingly obvious. Around 40% of Kiwis aged 65 and over have virtually no other income besides their superannuation. Another 20% have only a little more. Even with superannuation, close to one in three people don’t think they will have enough for retirement unless they continue working past 65.

Anne*, 67, currently works for a North Island language school but says the long hours and level of intensity leave her exhausted in the evenings. Covid, lockdowns and changes to the immigration policy that affected language schools led to a tough four years which ate into her retirement savings. She’s now searching, without luck, for a job with shorter hours. Somewhere like Mitre 10 or Countdown would do her just fine, she says.

She’s had experience in administration, working for a structural engineering company when she was made redundant during Covid, and in retail before that. But a major retailer didn’t take her on after an interview. Those interviewing her for jobs are often considerably younger, she says.

“I just don’t seem to be the profile of the person they’re looking for.”

Anne has a small retirement nest egg but not enough. She wants to keep working for the next 10 years in order to manage her rent and retire comfortably.

“The price to rent is outrageous and that’s your pension gone.”

Without that extra income, Anne says she worries about the future.

“I live with that insecurity. How am I going to live? It’s scary. I’ve worked hard but I’ve never earned enough to be able to put enough away.”

‘Older people are struggling’

Older workers’ advocate Ian Fraser runs a website, Seniors@work, aimed at helping Kiwis in the 50-plus age group find jobs. This year the number of older people looking for work on his site has jumped by 30%. Most, both men and women, have been made redundant, and many who are superannuitants who simply can’t afford to stop working.

“In this tough economic climate older people are struggling. I’ve never had as many people contact me in the last few months, obviously desperate to find work.”

Michele Davies has been a self-employed gardener for the past 17 years but at 64 the at-times back-breaking work is “getting hard”. She’s looking for part-time work closer to her Te Atatū Peninsula home, maybe putting her knowledge to good use by working at a garden centre. She’s put feelers out, has registered on Seniors@work, and checks Seek and Trade Me.

“But there’s not a lot around at the minute.”

Davies says she not only wants to work, she has to work. She’ll get superannuation next year but that won’t be enough to live comfortably. Her husband pays the rent, and she pays the rest of the bills.

“That’s the deal.”

Like others spoken to by the Herald, Davies has skills from a past life in garment technology, pattern making and soft furnishings. She also paints and is a potter, wondering aloud if she could set herself up as a tutor.

“I have lots of knowledge. I don’t want to waste it.”

It’s that knowledge and experience that older worker advocates like Fraser say employers should be valuing.

Oli Sanford-Scutt, senior director for recruitment agency Robert Walters Auckland, says employers and hiring managers may be missing out on excellent talent by overlooking the over-50s in favour of younger candidates.

Human resources expert Lisa Tonner doesn’t need persuading. As far as she’s concerned, companies should be finding the right person for the job regardless of age, gender or ethnicity.

Tonner, head of people, safety and sustainability for industrial suppliers NZ Safety Blackwoods, oversees a 550-strong workforce ranging in age from 18 to 73 years and says the company values workers with years of experience. NZ Safety Blackwood’s head of supply chain, a man in his 60s, was hired a couple of years ago.

NZ Safety Blackwoods has other workers in their 60s, and early 70s (nearly 100 in total), in various teams including sales, finance, IT, customer care and in the distribution centre (warehouse).

“Our mature team members bring a real richness to our culture in terms of their stories, their lived experiences, and we think culture is really critical for our success.”

They are reliable and can relate well to customers in their age range, she says.

“We love ex-tradespeople for example. Maybe their bodies aren’t able to be on the tools any more but they’re able to retrain on the computer. They have a lot of technical knowledge, particularly in our engineering and high technical safety categories.”

Fraser thinks employers’ attitudes to older workers have improved in the five years since he launched Seniors@work, at least on paper. But he thinks ageism is still a factor.

Although Fraser has a small group of loyal companies that pay to list jobs on his site, he’s concerned there aren’t enough coming through to make Seniors@work viable. In a tough job market employers don’t need to advertise for staff.

If things don’t improve, Fraser is considering closing the website later this year. He still needs to earn an income so, at 72, he too may be joining the 600 job hunters currently registered on his site.

Ask those in the recruitment and employment sector why older people find it harder to get a job and they come up with different reasons, many based on perceptions rather than research.

Tonner thinks she’s probably the wrong person to ask because she has witnessed first-hand the advantage of older workers. She shrugs off suggestions that the over 50s find it harder to adapt to a rapidly changing digital age, and learn new skills.

“The reality is I’ve seen that with young people.”

She theorises that older people could be viewed as “blockers” to younger employees wanting to progress their careers. A staff member, hired in their 60s, is unlikely to move on, stopping the next generation of talent from gaining experience and moving up the career ladder.

“If they can’t see a future in your company they will move on. It can be really problematic because you often have churn in the middle career group.”

Tonner also wonders of some younger Gen Z and Millennial managers might be nervous or lack experience about managing someone on their team who is the same age as their mother or father. And thanks to social media, do some younger managers have an unconscious bias towards Boomers?

If so, employers just might need to get over that bias in the future. They’ll be faced with an ageing workforce, a declining birth rate, and not enough skilled young people coming through to replace them. Add that to Kiwis heading off overseas to greener pastures – and more pay – and they could well find themselves eyeing the older workforce to fill gaps. Those gaps are already evident in areas like education, health, manufacturing and engineering.

Currently workers aged 50 and over make up a third of New Zealand’s labour force and is the fastest-growing demographic in the job sector.

A Business NZ report, prepared by consultancy Sense Partners last year, estimated that New Zealand’s need for workers will outstrip supply by 250,000 people by 2048.

Stats NZ estimates workers aged 45 to 64 will increase from 1.09 million in 2024 to 1.15 million in 2033. Workers aged 65 and over will increase from 217,000 to 278,600 over the same timeframe.

In the meantime, the shrinking job market is tough for the grey-haired workforce.

Sive knows she won’t be able to replicate her current salary but balks at dropping to one of the low-paid “merchandising” jobs – promoting a product in a supermarket or stocking shelves for a particular brand – advertised.

’I never mention my age’

At 67 she says she’s fit and strong, and has the mind of someone 30 years younger. She finds the “we won’t be progressing your application” responses puzzling. Is it her age?

“I never mention my age because I don’t think it’s any of their business. But I think they can guess your age if they look at your work history. I’ve been in the workplace for 49 years now.”

Australian Human Rights Commission research conducted with the Australian HR Insitute showed that nearly half the HR respondents said they would not hire workers above a certain age, although that age varied.

Blockages to hiring older workers included people expecting too high salaries, and not being as technically capable as younger people.

Wright thinks the digital issue can be a potential stumbling block for older workers.

‘’I think it’s a big one because the younger ones are all so savvy in that space.”

However, although younger people might be quicker at accessing information, they still need to know what to do with it, he says.

“You still need to think about that data and how you apply it. ”

At that point, age doesn’t come into it. Wright would like to see companies investing in training or managers setting aside time to upskill older workers who need digi-knowledge.

Surprisingly the Australian research also showed a lack of applications for roles by older workers was among the reasons they missed out, suggesting that they might be self-selecting themselves out of jobs by not applying for them.

Fraser thinks there’s some truth in this. He has bank clients offering professional and “white collar” jobs on his site but says he doesn’t get the number of applicants for some of these roles that he would like.

Go for it, and don’t fear failure, Sanford-Scutt advises. Show confidence and highlight the value the person will bring to a company with examples of how this has been achieved in the past, he says.

“The more confidently the candidate presents, the more confident the employer will be in their abilities.”

Tap into networks and work connections with colleagues who are in senior or hiring positions. Ask for feedback and input from previous mentors, former bosses and recruiters.

And work on the CV, he says. The skills of older workers are often overshadowed by their long CVs, some spanning more than five pages. Two pages will do, he says.

Get advice from experts like recruiters to help with CVs, interview preparation and cover letters.

Wright says older Kiwis have one main advantage when searching for jobs, they know how to pick up the phone.

“No one calls me any more and I think that’s a lost art form. If someone bothered to ring me I would look to interview them if I could.”

That point of contact with a stranger can be nerve-wracking, “scary” even, he says.

“But to make the effort to do that I think is really important and gives you an advantage because no one else does it.”

Ten tips for older job seekers

*Name has been changed to protect identity

Jane Phare is a senior Auckland-based business, features and investigations journalist, former assistant editor of NZ Herald and former editor of the Weekend Herald and Viva.