The most successful people are those who are wildly enthusiastic about their work.

I think that the big age problem in the job market today is really on the part of employers and that they don't seem to be calculating the cost of age discrimination to them when they practice it.

I think stupidity in business is really an interesting thing. What winds up happening is a disconnect between your company's strategic management and then your more applied on-the-street management. I guarantee with you that the board of directors of most companies has no idea what the costs of hiring people really is in the HR department.

An online job search seems cheaper. But what HR is doing is turning away valuable candidates. They're experiencing false negatives. That means the right person applies for the job electronically but the algorithm kicks them out so they lose that individual.

I think what's happening is companies are trying to maximize shareholder value and I think they realized that if they could hire more effectively, they would. What I'm suggesting, though, is that human resources departments in most companies have become so detached - have become such a bureaucracy - that they have become clueless. They don't realize that the processes they have put in place have very little to do with recruiting, retaining and bringing on talent.

There is age discrimination, but I think there are two kinds. One is when the employer is discriminating for specific reasons and doing it intentionally. The other is where you have managers who really aren't looking to discriminate but feel a little on edge because the candidate they're talking to is older. Sometimes they can even smell age concern on the part of the candidate and they wind up discriminating almost unconsciously.

Companies are missing out on phenomenal skills and capabilities of experienced older job hunters: wealth of knowledge, expertise, seasoning, maturity. Companies need to be reminded of that.