How to Handle a Job Interview When You Are Over 50
By JCA on July 16, 2025
by Caroline Hwang for NextAvenue
The key, as with most things, is preparation: how to handle ageist remarks, snarky questions and the fact that your boss may be younger than you
Think of the hundreds of online applications that likely come in for each new job opening, which are then screened by an AI “black box” — that is, a mathematical model whose decision making is opaque — and you may feel that just getting an interview is an accomplishment, whether you’re over 50 or under it.
Of course, the interview is only the beginning of the hiring process, and being older can be a real disadvantage. “Unfortunately, ageism exists,” says Stela Lupushor, founder of Reframe.Work, Inc., a consulting firm that tells clients how to develop innovative and inclusive workforces. “It’s one of the last ‘isms’ that we haven’t even begun to tackle as a society, and it’s driven by culture and amplified by HR practices.”
By HR practices, she’s referring to the biases that get reinforced by technologies like the algorithm that screens applications. But you can also face subtle and not-so-subtle discrimination in an interview. Perhaps it’s a comment that implies that you’re slow or you don’t have the desired “hunger” anymore. Or maybe it’s a pointed question that assumes something about people your age.
For Wendi Aarons, 57, who was up for a social media job, the offending question was about her familiarity with new technologies, or lack thereof.
“It was a panel of five people asking if I had ever used all of these different programs and platforms,” says Aarons. “I kept saying yes, and they kept coming at me with more. I swear they were either showing off for each other or making up names just to catch me.”
Needless to say, she didn’t get the job, though Aarons, who was bluffing by the end, did turn the ordeal into a funny story, which she tells in her satirical memoir, “I’m Wearing Tunics Now.” Most of us, however, hope to avoid such situations as well as ace the interview and get the job.