Last week I wrote about the rise of what many professionals are calling “professional ghosting” in hiring, multiple interviews, presentations, executive panels… followed by silence.
The conversation that followed surfaced another issue that deserves attention. How does this trend affect experienced professionals later in their careers? Many seasoned leaders quietly acknowledge a dynamic that rarely gets discussed openly.
Not necessarily
overt discrimination, but a series of assumptions that can subtly shape hiring
decisions:
• Concerns about salary expectations or benefit costs
• Assumptions about adaptability to new technologies or systems
• The perception that a highly experienced hire might disrupt existing
leadership dynamics
• The belief that someone with decades of experience may not stay long
None of these assumptions are typically stated directly, but they often exist in the background of search committee discussions.
Ironically, these same professionals frequently bring
exactly what organizations claim to want:
• Deep operational and leadership experience
• Institutional perspective developed over decades
• Crisis management capability
• The ability to mentor and develop younger professionals
• Long‑term strategic thinking
At a time when organizations talk constantly about
leadership pipelines, succession planning, and knowledge transfer, experienced professionals may represent one of
the most underutilized assets in the talent market.
Are organizations truly leveraging the leadership
capital of experienced professionals, or unintentionally filtering it out through modern hiring systems and
assumptions?
I’m curious what others are seeing.
Dr Flavius Akerele III
The ETeam
