Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Doug Myers takes part in a recent meeting of the Pittsburgh-based Pennsylvania Professional Employment Network. Click photo for larger image. Related coverage There are ways to overcome 'old' biases

Doug Myers, out of work and looking after 37 years as a telecommunications analyst with AT&T, never volunteers his age during job interviews but knows that he cannot hide all of the telltale signs.

"We only have kind conversations. We never talk about age. But I'm sure when someone looks at me, they look at my age spots first," the 60-year-old Valencia resident said at a recent meeting of the Pittsburgh-based Pennsylvania Professional Employment Network, or PAPEN.

There is reason for Myers to be sensitive.

Age bias -- often based on stereotypes that older people can't keep up with technology, are more expensive to hire and are not as flexible, productive or hard working as younger people -- persists even as the U.S. population grows older, according to government and private human resources experts.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency that administers the 1967 law barring discrimination against workers 40 and older, received nearly 18,000 age-related complaints in the 2004 fiscal year. That's down from slightly more than 19,000 in 2003 and nearly 20,000 in 2002, but higher than the preceding seven years.

The problem is that age discrimination is very difficult to prove. The EEOC said only 17 percent of the complaints it received last year were rsettled in favor of the person claiming age bias. In a majority of cases -- 61 percent -- the EEOC found no cause to believe discrimination took place. The rest were closed for administrative reasons.

One of those rare settlements took place last week.

The EEOC said Restoration Hardware Inc. agreed to pay $45,000 to settle a complaint alleging it had passed over a 52-year-old sales associate for a promotion at its store in the Galleria in Mt. Lebanon.

The job went to a less experienced but much younger applicant.

"Age discrimination is still a big problem in the workplace, one that some employers need to pay more attention to," said David Grinberg, an EEOC spokesman. "But unless [employees or job applicants] have smoking-gun evidence or can show a pattern of a company rejecting older workers, it's very difficult to prove."

AARP, the advocacy group for older Americans, tested the market a few years ago by mailing resumes to employers from fictitious candidates both young and old.

Resumes depicting younger candidates drew more positive responses from employers than those depicting older workers. At least a quarter of the time, the fictitious older workers were told there were no openings while the younger person was courted for an opening.

"It is probably one of the more prevalent forms of discrimination, but you don't see that many charges filed," said Laurie McCann, a Pittsburgh native and AARP's legal counsel.

"People have that gut feeling that they were discriminated against, but they are on the outside looking in and can't do a comparison of their qualifications to the person who was hired; so they just don't do anything about it."

But it's not impossible to find a job if you're over 55, says Richard Bayer, chief operating officer of the Five O'Clock Club, a national outplacement and career coaching organization based in New York.

Citing U.S. Labor Department statistics, Bayer said it typically takes people over 55 four weeks longer than their younger competitors to find a job. "That's not a terminal obstacle," he said. "It just takes a bit more time."

A bigger obstacle than age, Bayer contends, is discouragement.

That sentiment was much in evidence when a group of older job seekers who belong to PAPEN, the job networking organization, gathered in Hampton Presbyterian Church to discuss the frustrations and obstacles they face in looking for work.

Myers' frustration is exacerbated because many of the managers with whom he has interviewed over the past three months are younger than he and have less experience in the competitive, changing telecom industry.

"I'm sure they're asking 'What can this person bring to the company?' But I'm sure they're also asking, 'Is this person a threat to me? ' " Myers said. "So, not only are you old, but you're a threat."

A laid-off utility company executive complained that interviewers focused more on his past salary rather than the skills he developed in 35 years of working in human resources and training.

One young manager told him she was looking for team players who are fun.

"I guess I'm not fun," said the executive, who did not want to be identified for fear publicity would hurt his job search. "Coming from a utility mentality, that is not the way we work. It's a shift in your mind to do that."

Chemical process engineer Ron Brown, 64, said he frequently sends out resumes in response to job advertisements and is often told he is well qualified but doesn't get the interviews he wants.

"I can understand if they call me in for an interview and they don't like the way I part my hair or if I don't make a good impression I don't get the job," Brown said. "But what frustrates me is you don't even get a foot in the door, and that is what convinced me there is age discrimination."

The McCandless resident heard through the grapevine that the hiring manager at one company he admires simply assumed from his background that he would require more money than the employer was willing to pay. He didn't get a chance to say he could be flexible on salary.

"I want to work because I really enjoy what I do," Brown said. "I still feel like I can make a contribution."

Experience can seem more of a liability than an asset in some rapidly developing fields, said Ron Rabatin, a computer programmer for two decades before being laid off about a year ago.

His work was specialized, and he finds a reluctance among employers to consider older workers who may need retraining.

"When people our age are hired, companies want us to hit the ground running," said Rabatin, 56, of Bellevue. "They feel we're not going to be around long enough to recoup their investments in us, particularly if they have to do a lot of training."

Pam Robie, a commercial real estate veteran who lives in Hampton, said a financial institution brought her in for three interviews before telling her the available position was for a more junior executive and paid less than she might expect.

When she showed what she called a "transitioning resume" to a friend in business, he said he would throw it in the waste basket because he didn't have resources to train a candidate and didn't want to train someone older.

"I thought that was really revealing and terrifying," said Robie, who has experience in leasing shopping centers and other commercial properties but would not disclose her age.

Rich Loether, 57, of Hampton, a former data center manager at the University of Pittsburgh, decided to start all over after he lost that job in a reorganization, and a second position he briefly held turned out not to be the right fit. He had worked 25 years at Pitt.

After deciding management wasn't what he wanted to do, he enrolled at the Pittsburgh Technical Institute, picked up a certification in Cisco Systems and took an overnight job on a computer help desk.

He hopes the entry-level job will give him a chance to freshen skills that got stale when he was a manager, and eventually lead to a better yet related position that will combine all of his experience.

"The biggest change for me was going from a long stay with an employer and getting back in the cycle of changing jobs every couple of years, which doesn't thrill me a bit," he said. "But if that's the way of the world, I'll have to roll with it or play dead. And I'm not going to play dead for a long time."