Navigating Ageism in Hiring Processes

In partnership with

Your dream is ready. Are you?

What if you woke up tomorrow with all your expenses covered for an entire year? No rent. No bills. What would you dream up? What would you build?

Our Dare to Dream challenge answers these questions. We believe in Creators, in Entrepreneurs, in the people who bet on their own ideas and their will to make them real.

That’s why we’re awarding $100,000 to one person who shows up as their authentic self and tells us how their dream can make a real difference in their communities.

We’ve got five runner-up prizes each worth $10,000, too. So get out your phone, hit record, and dream the dream only you can dream up.

Today is your day.

Sign Up

_{NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. For full Official Rules, visit daretodream.stan.store/officialrules.}

Sponsors help keep this newsletter free so show them some love with a click!
That way, I can keep my content free for you! 😇

Resource Round-Up

• This was a sponsored post for my friends at Teal but hope it offers some good tips!

• I wrote this post about the fastest growing jobs (according to LinkedIn) - and please note that LinkedIn is offering access to LinkedIn Learning courses for free until 2/6, and they link relevant courses within this report. Enjoy!

• I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…don’t use AI appliers. Because here’s an example of how responses to open-ended questions often come through and most companies aren’t going to consider even an awesome resume with these kinds of responses on the app questions!

  

Our Contest Winners!

In December, I did a give away for 5 free AI headshots, from my friends at Headshot Pro. The winners are Amy N., Belle R., Rebecca M., Christine B., and Alexia B.

I will email you your code by the end of this week! Thank you to everyone who signed up!

AI in HR? It’s happening now.

Deel's free 2026 trends report cuts through all the hype and lays out what HR teams can really expect in 2026. You’ll learn about the shifts happening now, the skill gaps you can't ignore, and resilience strategies that aren't just buzzwords. Plus you’ll get a practical toolkit that helps you implement it all without another costly and time-consuming transformation project.

Get the free report today.

🙋Answering Your Questions🙋

Each week, I’ll answer one (or more!) of your questions in this section. You can submit your questions here.

I have a bit of an unpopular perspective here which is that ageism absolutely exists, but I don’t think it’s as pervasive as many people claim. I wrote a post on LinkedIn last year on this topic so I’ll drop it here.

Of course I think at times, age bias exists alongside legitimate concerns around skill or scope mismatches. But in most cases, I think it’s something people can overcome if they’re strategic in their approach.

In my opinion, if a company plans to discriminate against you for your age, they will do it whether it’s obvious in your resume or from talking to you so I personally don’t try to hide it.

That said, a few tips for striking a balance here:

1. Avoid signaling misalignment on your resume.
   For example, if you’re applying for a Sr. Software Engineer role that asks for 8 years of experience, noting “Software engineer with 40+ years of experience” isn’t going to be super compelling and might unnecessarily raise questions (why is someone with that much experience applying for this role, why haven’t they progressed, etc.)

2. Show fluency with modern tools.
   Name how you’re using AI tools, list the CRMs or cloud tools you’ve used. If the recruiter or hiring manager DOES have biases pop for them around your familiarity with modern tools, this gets ahead of it.

3. Be explicit if you’re intentionally taking a step back.
   One of the biggest question marks is why someone would want to do a more junior role but if you can be clear about your rational (the summary section is a great place to do this), you can get ahead of those concerns.

_{For more resources to support you in your search, check out my Linktree.}
My content is seen by over 8 million people each month. Need help getting the word out about your brand? Let’s connect!