Jordi Pascual’s video got his father a job and sparked public debate about ageism in the workplace.
Ageism at workplace is alive and well.
Take Jordi Pascual’s father for example, the 59-year-old spent nine years unemployed, despite his excellent qualifications.
His son, however, didn’t take no for an answer and decided to fight back. Instead of writing an angry blog post or joining a protest, the 26-year-old did a short video.
The short film, titled as “Hire my father. This is the reality of the job market in Spain.”, painted the bleak picture in the Spanish workplace, where ageism is preventing people as young as 50-year-old struggling to get hired.
Jordi’s father (also named Jordi), has a stunning resume – with three college degrees under his belt, the well-educated Spanish veteran has been an auditor, a financial director, a company’s controller, and a team supervisor in a multinational company.
Shocking, the job market rejected him for nearly 10 years.
Aside from wanting to help his father to get hired, Jordi was determined to spark public debate about the prevalent issue in Spain and beyond – it’s increasingly difficult to find a job if you’re over 40 years old.
He published the video and launched a website contrataamipadre.com , where visitors can see a timeline of his father’s professional and personal life and can download his résumé.
In the video, Jordi plays the role of his father, where he was constantly searching for a job online, and going to a job interview, where his qualifications are read off and the recruiter asks, “How is it possible that with the knowledge and experience you have, you’re looking for a job, when companies should be looking for you instead?” At that moment, Jordi is replaced in the video by his father, who replies, “Because I’m 59 years old.” The video ends with the address of the website Jordi created.
Not only did Jordi’s video helped his father landing a job eventually, it also quickly won overwhelming support online – in fact his video racked up more than 100,000 views in less than three months.
Jordi started to receive messages of support, proposals for meetings, and eventually a total of 30 job offers that boiled down to 15 solid offers. Jordi’s father now has a job: he’s the CFO of a small company.
Source: aleteia.org