[jongraehl]

I'm not a fan of "protected category" hiring rules in any case. If good old people are underpaid, then let your company profit by hiring them. I suppose a tempting compromise is to not allow companies to solicit disclosure of age etc (so people can leave the year off their degree, show only most recent experience, etc), but honestly I think it might be better if those companies that really will only hire young would advertise the fact and save everyone some time.

Starting from only a very small real disadvantage in ability, any externally distinctive group can quickly seem a 'market for lemons' - for example, maybe the oldsters you've seen so far across the interview table are unrepresentatively bad, because the good ones are working and not interviewing. So don't think because you've seen 4 weak candidates of 50+ years old that it's not worth looking at the next.