There’s a lot of outrage about this reporting.
But I support this message.
Wait. Wait. Put the pitchforks down.
I don’t support the message position or content.
It’s ageism, discriminatory and incredibly short-sighted.
But this message – the fact that many recruiters and hiring managers are comfortable airing these views publicly – is a behaviour.
It’s easy to focus on a behaviour and decide whether it is good or bad.
What’s harder is to understand what makes these individuals and groups feel that it’s acceptable to show that behaviour.
The behaviour is an output.
It’s a symptom.
Challenging the behaviour without dealing with what is nurturing it doesn’t resolve anything. Just as dismissing a “dodgy” sales person for their behaviour doesn’t stop the behaviour manifesting in others if we still have processes – such as reward mechanics – that encourage that behaviour.
I support this message not because of what it says on the surface.
I support it because it shines a small light on why individuals feel comfortable airing these views.
And I would rather have that light shone than their ageism be hidden, structural and influential in shadow.
It is easy to be outraged at overt acts of bigotry.
But the true cure to these views doesn’t lie in addressing the surface behaviours in isolation.
It lies in the structural, cultural, and institutional drivers of those behaviours.
The things that normalise and give courage to that bigotry.
