Need a “wise old dudes” meet up and charge those under 40 to attend- few 20 to 30 year olds understand how much of value they could get from an “old dude” for the price of a beer/coffee.
However, it seems that most folks conflate "older" (which is getting increasingly younger -I encounter folks in their early forties that can't get interviews), and "useless."
Funny. We're doing pretty well at opening up the industry to folks from many ethnic backgrounds, and women, but the industry actively encourages ageism.
Most of the "reasons" end up falling flat, upon closer inspection.
It just seems that gray hair makes people uncomfortable. I guess it always has, but in the Days of Yore, corporations were usually run by older folks, so we had to work with them (I didn't always have gray hair, myself -spoiler: We all get a turn at this wheel).
Indeed, ageism is a serious issue. And it seems out of touch with an ageing society in most countries.
I'm not young anymore either and my experience job hunting has been that I get invited to fewer initial interviews, but when I am, the whole process is much much easier for myself than a decade ago. Onboarding is also much faster.
