A recent NFO-HT Careers survey reveals that the corporate sector has a significant bias against recruiting older people.

"About 61 per cent of the HR managers contacted for the survey said they looked at the 'age' factor while recruiting. The HR heads linked performance to age and older employees were perceived to be less productive," Gautam Nath, director (corporate services), NFO India, said.

About 92 per cent of the companies surveyed were found to follow a policy, whereby the retirement age was fixed between 56 and 60.

These firms emphasised more on attitude, inside-the-box thinking and energy levels than experience or knowledge-base. Those belonging to a higher age-group were perceived to be lacking in these areas.

The study, which was conducted during June-July 2003, covered HR managers of organisations based in the three major metros i.e. New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

A total of 61 corporate managers were interviewed spread evenly across the three centres. The companies covered included HSBC, BNP Paribas, J K Industries, Newgen Software, HPCL, Lucent Technologies, Mahindra & Mahindra, Britannia Industries, ICICI and Max India.

The study found that a lot of employers were more interested in quick-fix solutions, which meant that they did not always hire the right person all the time.

In a competitive environment where the lead-time to react was short and companies needed to be more proactive with their customers than before, it was the younger breed of managers who had an edge, primarily because of their ability to demonstrate high energy levels and their desire to grow and lead.

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