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[heptameron]

For those of you who have experience in hiring new faculty, I've a question...

I went to college after a career.  So, I am on the job market for assistant prof positions and I am already middle-aged.  I have to go to a campus for an interview next week, and I will need to do a teaching demonstration and a formal lecture about my research.  Will the faculty be reluctant to hire a middle-aged candidate?

[larryc]

It won't be a problem.

[ruralguy]

I've never had an issue with age.

In some ways, I kind of like hiring a "grown-up."

Some might grumble about it, but if you are the top candidate, you'll be hired. So, your job is to be the clearly top candidate.

Some might suggest changing hair color and such (if you have white or gray hair). I don't think its necessary.

[galway]

Presumably they know (or can estimate) your age from the materials and letters that they looked at when they decided to invite you in for an interview.  Is everything about your prior experience cut from those?  If not they know what they're getting and yet they still wanted to invite you for an interview.  So that suggests they don't care.  Also middle-age is a broad category, someone approaching retirement might give them pause but if you have 20 years of work ahead of you I think they can get what they need from you.  I don't know that age never plays a role but it seems that there's a broad range of acceptable ages for hiring (at least I've seen that in my field).  However, being (or appearing) energetic does seem important.  I don't think this is an age issue (my retired dad can still thrash me on a bike) but departments want to hire excited, energetic people and it may sometimes take slightly more convincing that you are that if you're on the north side of 50 but I have seen it done.  

[weathered]

Based on the rejections I got so far, no, age was not a problem. I lost one to a guy 3-5 years younger than me and to a woman 7-10 years older than me. So neither age nor gender determined the outcome of my job search.

[brixton]

Commitment, passion and energy are more important than age.

[oldfullprof]

Yes, it's definitely a factor for R-1s and SLACs.  R-1s want someone who will be subject to domination. amd who has a history of being an RA in grad school.  This means young and of mediocre talents fairly often.  They also like the "bright shiny penny."  SLACs often want the latest silly thing in terms of dissertation topics/slavishness to nominal "diversity."  It's ageist and pretty disgusting.

I don't know what some of the posters above were smoking, but I wish I had some.

PS:  I think youth, nominal energy, and enthusiasm are inversely correlated with intelligence fairly often.  As an old bull, I prefer to walk down the hill, then...

[janewales]

Yes, it's definitely a factor for R-1s and SLACs.  R-1s want someone who will be subject to domination. amd who has a history of being an RA in grad school.  This means young and of mediocre talents fairly often.  

Well, N=1 and all, but at my R1, our most recent hires have covered the range from late 20s to mid 40s, with most in their mid-30s. None was of mediocre talent; if they're to get through tenure, then they need to be very talented and very hard-working, not to mention strong-minded.

[ruralguy]

Well, I teach at a SLAC, and have for 13 years. Something like 100-ish ranked, nationally (we mostly get regional students).

The one thing I do not know is how many people over, say, 40, applied for a position. All I know is who we hire and keep.
Admittedly, the older end of the age distribution isn't any kind of majority, but thats mainly due to self selection out of the job market.
One of our classics hires was about 40 when hired. Another language person was well over 50, and a math/comp sci guy was probably later 40's, maybe even 50's. Ok, thats only 3 people, and we've probably hired about 30-35 TT people since I have been here (some were
replacements of folks who quit after a couple of years). A number of those were UNDER 30!

So, given these numbers, I really can't say whether your chances at a SLAC like mine would be better or worse than anywhere else. I'd just say that its quite possible.

That being said, age-ism, looks-ism, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Mormonism, anti -anything you can think of all exist.

What can I say, but try your best, since you have a decent shot?

[fedscholar]

I am going to say yes. Age is a subtle form of bias, and it certainly seems field and institution dependent, but I think it does exist. Entry level hiring academia is largely generational, which I think is a structural weakness. I can only speak from my experiences, but interest in my applications has dropped off sharply even as my publications, teaching experience, and awards have ramped up greatly (it could well be the market going over the cliff too..I just don't know for sure). I will agree with old full prof. that R1s and elite SLACs seem to be most predisposed to the pure academic model. To them, if you are over 40 without several dozen publications, you must be second rate, because that is what a top-tier candidate on a 'pure" track would likely have. No matter that there are a gazillion worthwhile things you might have been doing instead. However, I do think some fields value outside experience more than others, and of course regional comprehensives and other schools may have a more flexible view of a great teacher  / scholar.

BUT....you have an interview next week! So it sounds like on paper you have done well.  I would look at your hair (a bit of grecian formula, fresh cut?) and attire to convey energy and vigor, but otherwise just have fun with it and rock this thing!  

I will say people are advising you not to obsess on this, and that is probably very good advice. Being paranoid or fatalistic cannot helf. However, it might be worth giving some thought to the potential negatives of older candidates to see if you can demonstrate you have them covered and mitigated. I'd be interested too.

I would challenge other other posters who have sat on search committees. Has there ever been any concerns you have ever had with an older interviewee for an Asst. Prof. post? If so, please share. If not, do that too. Please also post your institution type. Thanks!

[ruralguy]

Though I suppose some folks compensate for lack of ability by being vapidly enthusiastic, I think we are talking about being enthusiastic about one's thorough and well-recieved research, or energetic in engaing students on potentially difficult subjects.

Think about the opposite: if a candiate were to be deliberately unethusiastic, how likely would it be that they will get hired (ok, maybe thats just proving the rule, but thats the way things are)?

[zeeland]

R1, engineering. It has not been a problem and can be a plus if your first career was in engineering practice.

[ruralguy]

By the way, I do think over-enthusiasm amongst administrative critters can be a really bad sign. But thats often the vapid type of enthusiasm.

Fedscholar: Ive been on a few search committees. I can't recall how many older candidates were weeded out, or made it to campus and lost. But the one case I do remember, for which I was on the committee, the oldest guy who interviewed (I'd say, mid to late 40's) killed his chances by berating a student during his talk. That was awesome. I mean, for the search committee. It made it really easy to justify eliminating that guy, and I am sure the Dean would have loved him. In any case, until the berating, and even after, he seemed pretty good. I can't say he would have been a universal pick for all of us, but not a universal "pan" either. Our doubts weren't about age, but about him being a little arrogant, and maybe set in his ways of research, which required him to take a lot of trips to far away places, and often without any students in tow. That didn't sound good to us at a SLAC. So maybe AGE itself isn't the main problem, but perception that you won't mold yourself to the new situation is?

Anyway, this seems to be one of those age old questions that makes it to us all every 6 months, and then we all post the same stuff, and nothing ever gets concluded, because how can there really be any specific conclusion?

[fedscholar]

Good posts on this thread ruralguy.

Yes, we are repeating ourselves here, but how many times do conversations do that in general?

I will relate something I read about ecologist hires in a paper recently, most are about 33 years old, with three years of postdoctoral experience, about 10-15 pubs, and a number of grants. Given the standard deviation on that study was about 4 years, a 45 year old candidate would be about three standard deviations above the mean, and  on a standard bell curve (which the study largely showed, approximately) such candidates would compose a bit under 0.2% of the hires. Now, if less than 0.2% of the applicants are that age, then discrimination would not be proven, of course. If the percentages are considerably higher, perhaps there is some truth to it. Once again, the example above is for ecology and evolution, which is a largely academic/research field. I suspect that similar profiles could be developed for most other fields to provide a quantitative backdrop for comparison with applicant pools. Given that I am 47, and in ecology / natural resources, so the study did give me pause. Part of it is pure statistics and part of it is achetypes. I cannot say exactly what the relative roles are, but I would imagine neither is trivial.

[zeeland]

fedscholar: can you provide a link to this paper? Sounds interesting.