My Transforming Encounter With Ageism
When I was fifty-three, at the apex of a successful career in management and organization development, my employer's Fortune 500 company merged with another, and executives were replaced by their counterparts from the new parent corporation. I wasn't worried by the news of my layoff. I possessed a graduate degree in the human sciences, and had been adjunct professor of organization development in the graduate schools at two respected universities. I had also written numerous articles in professional journals and magazines, and nineteen books for corporations. I was well known in my field, and was in demand in my company's eleven divisions as teambuilder, workshop leader, therapist, executive and consultant in the United States and internationally. I felt confident that I would easily relocate. I was wrong.
The following years presented some of the most strenuous challenges of my life. I sent out more than four hundred resumes, which resulted in many interviews, but I kept hearing over and over again: "You're overqualified" I discovered what they really meant was: "You're too old for us." People in their thirties and early forties were getting the jobs.
