In the hiring process, older job seekers are often at a disadvantage when compared to younger job seekers: They receive less callbacks to applications, less invitations to job interviews, and fewer job offers. This phenomenon has often been demonstrated by varying explicit cues such as the date of birth. Less studied, but also influential are implicit age cues (e.g., age‐stereotypic characteristics or activities in applicant profiles). Across a series of three studies, we addressed both forms of age cues in job applications. We explored the influence of explicit age information (20 years or 60 years) and implicit age profiles (age‐neutral, young, or old job‐relevant characteristics) on hiring decisions in hypothetical scenarios and tested the effect of a short anti‐discrimination prompt. Applicants’ age (i.e., the explicit age cue) reduced the hiring likelihood ratings irrespective of implicit age profiles. The implicit age profiles influenced the hypothetical hiring decisions by their age association and by the stereotypical relevance of individual characteristics (e.g., charismatic as an age‐neutral characteristic is stereotypically relevant for a leadership position). Applicants with an implicit old profile were less likely hired than applicants with an implicit young profile when the hiring goal was to increase profit and when no particular job status was specified. The anti‐discrimination prompt significantly reduced age discrimination. Ageism in the hiring process is not only a matter of explicit age cues, but also of implicit age cues. Raising awareness for ageism and prompting to disregard age could well diminish discriminatory behavior also in real hiring decisions.

中文翻译：

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内隐和外显的年龄线索会影响求职申请的评估

在招聘过程中，与年轻的求职者相比，年长的求职者通常处于劣势：他们收到的申请回叫较少，求职面试的邀请更少，工作机会更少。经常通过改变明确的提示（例如出生日期）来证明这种现象。研究较少，但也有影响的是隐性年龄线索（例如，年龄刻板印象特征或申请人资料中的活动）。在一系列的三项研究中，我们讨论了工作申请中两种年龄提示的形式。我们探索了假设年龄情景中明确的年龄信息（20岁或60岁）和隐性年龄特征（与年龄无关，年轻或与工作年龄相关的特征）对雇用决策的影响，并测试了简短的反歧视提示的效果。申请人的年龄（即 显性年龄提示）降低了招聘可能性等级，而与隐性年龄特征无关。隐性年龄特征通过其年龄关联和个人特征的定型相关性影响假设的雇用决策（例如，魅力型的与年龄无关的特征与领导职位具有定型相关性）。当招聘目标是增加利润并且未指定特定职位时，具有隐性旧职位的申请人被录用的可能性低于具有隐性年轻职位的申请人。反歧视提示大大减少了年龄歧视。招聘过程中的年龄歧视不仅是明确的年龄暗示，而且是隐性的年龄暗示。