What if you are being interviewed for a leadership role and the discussion is over in 10 minutes? My CHRO friend, who had already completed a round of assessment with one of the directors of the company, was given the nod for the next round. Five minutes into the second interview, he was asked to share his age. As soon as my friend said he was 52, the interviewer lost interest and wrapped up the meeting, which forced my friend to ask if age was a concern. The interviewer said, “After 50, we have observed people become fixated on how they work, and hence we prefer someone younger.” My friend, who has an MBA from a pedigree B-school and has been in the profession for 25 years, told me this was not an isolated instance, and that he has been experiencing this age bias in the hiring process everywhere.

I consoled my friend, saying it could be an issue of many frictions coming into play, starting with the oversupply of HR professionals in India. There are over 2.9 lakh HR professionals with an MBA and 10-25 years’ experience. Each year the top 10 B-schools churn out 1,000-plus postgraduates with HR specialisation. When it comes to HR heads, many MNCs prefer to hire women for the role, so qualified, experienced men may sometimes lose out. To top it all, among the 100 CHROs hired in the last 12 months, only 11 per cent were above 50 years. So the numbers are completely stacked against my ‘aged’ HR friend.

If you think this is discrimination, please hold your thought. In India, we can ascribe any reason for rejecting a job aspirant, including gender, statehood, qualification, institute, marital status, employer, height and a few others that I can’t even state here. So, age as a rejection parameter is considered acceptable by most recruiters here.

The ‘fire’ brigade

“I don’t want to work like Kamal mama does at his age,” my nephew said to my sister. Though my nephew is only 21, he thinks he will be done working by 35 and enjoy life. The concept of ‘financially independent early retirement’ (FIRE) is trending these days among the next gen. If they don’t want to work beyond a certain age and want a plethora of breaks for their mental health, should we not appreciate the eagerness of the older set who are keen to continue working? It seems like corporates are caught in this crossfire of experience vs youth. It’s common to hear statements such as “the average employee age in our organisation is 28; let’s get a leader under 40, who can relate to them”. When I chose my successor at my last employment, one of my direct reportees told me, almost accusingly, “We always had a country head who was below 40 and you are leaving us with a 45-year-old.” Age is a discussion that refuses to go away in our influential private spaces.

Rewiring vs retiring

“I haven’t retired, I am rewired,” quipped one of my CEO friends who recently hung up his boots, but continues to be busy with multiple gigs at 62. One of my cousins who worked with an MNC was forced to retire at 55 with the next three years’ salary cheque banked in advance. He wasn’t happy as he felt he had some more gas left in him. However, he reconciled himself to the reality as he was financially secured by his employer’s golden sunset scheme and his promotions had been stalled by his supervisor in favour of his younger colleagues. My neighbour, who retired at 58, seems to be happy with a new farmhouse he has built on the outskirts of Bengaluru. If your only goal is to lead a relaxed life, it’s difficult to hide that from your employer. Don’t you think they see it before it hurts them?

Young vs old

I analysed 870 CXO movements in India in 2025, and 60 per cent involved those aged 40-50. Interestingly, 36 per cent were in the 40-45 age group. Moreover, 20 per cent were below 40 years, indicating the preference of large enterprises. Only 20 per cent of the corporations hired leaders above 50. The 100-plus startup unicorns in India have only 25 per cent of their CXOs above 48 years, matching the age demographics of their younger founders. But all is not gloom yet for CXOs above 50. The average age of incoming S&P 500 CEOs reached its highest recorded level in 2023, at 56.4, and the average age of C-suite leaders has levelled out at around 57, as it was in the 1950s. In India, amongst the NSE-500 companies, the average age is about 57, similar to the global Fortune 500 firms’ C-level executives.

I think the enterprises that are hiring 50-plus executives must be inspired by the quote, “Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.”

(Kamal Karanth is co-founder of Xpheno, a specialist staffing firm)

More Like This

Published on November 24, 2025