Recruitment ageism vector illustration. Tiny old persons segregation concept. Unfair economical employment problem with seniors career rejection. Human resources avoid work offer to aged society part.

In today's hiring landscape, finding quality candidates (and keeping them) is no simple task — and for most of the commercial cleaning industry this is no exception. Be it a frontline cleaning position or a salesperson for a distributor, hiring managers want to make sure they aren't closing the door on good candidates before they even get a chance.

Often unintentionally, businesses can restrict their hiring pool through ageism, be it through experience preferences, assumptions about retirement, or otherwise. To help businesses avoid these pitfalls, Employee Benefit News highlighted several actionable methods to help avoid ageism in the hiring process. 

1. Assuming candidate preferences. When it comes to entry or associate-level positions, companies can offer prospective employees a lower salary than positions that require more years of experience, making younger candidates a more reasonable option on-paper. While reasonable, hiring managers can make the mistake of assuming that since they wouldn't take this offer themself at their age, someone of a similar age would think the same thing. In doing so, many good candidates can fall to the wayside who are looking to switch fields or are simply looking for any opportunity they can find. 

2. Unintentionally discriminatory humor. When employees are getting accustomed to their work environment, some can be very mindful of how they are perceived by their new coworkers. Especially if they are older than many of their fellow employees, it can be easy to feel like an outsider without proper reinforcement and encouragement. Trying to avoid old-age jokes as excuses for being late or forgetting something can go a long way toward making sure a newer older employee doesn't feel ostracized — even if they don't appear offended on the outside or the joke has no bad intent. 

3. Language in job postings. A lot of job postings can accidentally filter out a lot of potentially quality older candidates simply by the way the position is described. Examples include maximums for years of experience (implying that a candidate is overqualified and therefore shouldn't apply), requiring them to share their entire work history, or having them list the years in which they graduated from college or got secondary degrees. By avoiding these parameters unless it's absolutely necessary, businesses can get more quality applicants while reducing opportunities for subconscious bias to seep in. 

For additional retention tips for employees, click here.