Cartoon: Cao Yi planned and hosted the interview with Liu Mengni. Guests Du Jiangyong: Associate Professor of Civil and Commercial Law School of Southwest University of Political Science and Law Li Zhiqiang: Associate Professor of Lanzhou University Law School Yan Tian: Assistant

Comics: Cao Yi

Planning and hosting Liu Mengni

Interview with guests

Du Jiangyong: Associate Professor of Civil and Commercial Law School of Southwest University of Political Science and Law

Li Zhiqiang: Associate Professor of Lanzhou University Law School

Yan Tian: Peking University Law School Assistant Professor

Chen Mingquan: Dana Technology CEO

Zhang Xu: Senior Public Relations Manager of Maimai

Liu Jianbin: Founder of Oufang Angel Fund

Editor's Note

When Lao Hu, an employee in the FMCG industry, was preparing to change jobs, he found that many companies required applicants to be "under 35 years old"; Xiao Liu, an employee of a ministry, wanted to change departments in the same unit, but the other party "in principle" asked him to be under 35 years old...

Whether it is media reports or complaints in friends circles, 35 years old should be the golden age of a career, but in some cases Industry becomes upper age limit.

In which industries is this looming dividing line that runs through the system inside and outside the system more obvious? Is implicit age discrimination involved? How to deal with personal career planning? What do business managers think?

This issue of the Chamber invites four professionals over the age of 35 to tell their personal experiences. Their stories include anxiety and stress, and also reflect the diversity of lifestyles.

At the same time, the "Youwen" platform invited several legal scholars, business executives, Internet commentators, etc. to discuss these issues.

People who have experienced it say

are lucky to have escaped workplace anxiety.

Yingying, a financial practitioner.

One of the impacts of high taxes and good benefits is that people are not so anxious about promotions and salary increases, and some people even take time off from work to do so. What I want to do

I am 36 years old and currently live in Melbourne . I work as an Associate Director of Institutional Banking Digitalization in one of the four major banks in Australia. The Chinese translation is called "Deputy Director". Overall, I consider myself a lucky woman who does not have a timetable for turning 35.

Of course, I have had my share of anxious moments. I have been annoyed that as a woman, I had to temporarily leave the workplace and have to slow down as I have to give birth to a child. But around the age of 35, I slowly found a balance between work and life, passed the stage of having to worry about food and clothing, and came to have my own rhythm in life.

After I graduated from the Department of Economics at Fudan University at the age of 23, I joined the Standard Chartered Bank Management Trainee Program. At the age of 26, I was transferred to Singapore . At the age of 29, I applied for INSEAD's MBA while pregnant. In the second semester, I studied at school from 8:30 in the morning to 10 in the evening and could not see my son who was awake. Looking back on that time, I still feel a little regretful.

After graduating from

, it is not impossible for me to stay in Singapore, especially considering that Singapore has convenient transportation, it is easy to return to the country, and it is easy to find suitable live-in helpers. But I hoped that I could personally accompany my children to grow up, so when I was 31 years old, I left Asia and moved to Melbourne.

Even in the financial industry, I still commute from 9 to 5 every day. I can go to the gym at least three or four times a week. I don’t work overtime on weekends. It is more suitable for taking care of the family. I can also take care of the children myself with my husband.

Around me, many people don’t seem to regard promotion and salary increase as the most important thing. At my level, there are people like me who are in their 30s, and colleagues who are in their 40s and 50s.

One of the effects of high taxes and good benefits is that people are not so anxious about promotions and salary increases. Some people even took a leave of absence without pay to do what they wanted to do. Women take a year off after each child. No one around me seems to be suffering from workplace anxiety as middle age approaches.

In my opinion, workplace recruitment requirements that applicants must be under 35 years old are blatant discrimination without any logic or reason.

In Australia, not only age cannot be used as a recruitment requirement, but neither gender nor race can be used. Many companies require a certain percentage of women even at the top level. Although this brings up another problem - for example, I hate that because of the existence of this quota, people will say that I was promoted because I am a woman.

But I am still very fortunate that the workplace environment here makes me no longer anxious. My current life is not without stress and frustration, but it comes more from the fact that my banking job does not provide the value I deserve to my customers.

I am one of the lucky ones who escaped the anxiety of middle-aged workplace.

There is no place for me in the workplace

Tang Baoer, unemployed

html Thirteen years ago, I resigned and left Beijing. After returning to my hometown, the capital city of the province, I have been having trouble finding a job. I interviewed with several local companies, and they all asked for jobs under the age of 35.

html Thirteen years ago, after I left Beijing and returned to my hometown in the provincial capital city, job hunting has been difficult. I interviewed several local companies, and all of them were under 35 years old.

The polite HR will reject me politely, but the rude HR will say nothing further. I can only comfort myself by saying that HR will also grow old. After

hit a wall several times, my self-confidence was severely affected, so I kept resting at home.

Before this, my resume actually looked very good. I am a 211 undergraduate graduate and have work experience in state-owned enterprises and large companies. Before my last resignation, my company ranked among the top ten in the country.

My husband is about the same age as me, and he used to be an engineering project manager for a communications operator. A few years ago, the branch he was working at was not performing well and he was transferred to a new branch.

My husband was already 38 years old when he arrived at the new branch. He was assigned to climb a tower to install equipment. He had to climb to a height of 50 meters or more to install antennas.

A young man in his 20s who graduated from junior high school can easily climb three towers in one day. My husband graduated with a bachelor's degree. Although he had done this kind of work when he was young, due to physical strength, he could only climb one climb a day, and the psychological burden was heavy.

Although the climbing tower has safety facilities, at such a high place and the wind is so strong, I am really afraid of accidentally falling off.

He often told me that it would be okay if I died, but what about you and your children?

My husband later resigned due to too much pressure. But it is difficult for him to find a suitable job at his age, so he can only drive Didi. Fortunately, Didi provides jobs for those of us who are middle-aged unemployed so that we can support our families.

Opening Didi is also very hard, but more work brings more rewards. My husband’s monthly net income ranges from 5,000 to 10,000. The key is whether he works 8 hours a day or 15 hours a day.

What we are most worried about now is health issues. My husband complained many times about leg pain, back pain, and shoulder pain.

Let’s talk about other middle-aged professionals around me. I know very few of my peers who are senior executives. Except for female classmates who work in public institutions, most of them have a strong sense of crisis.

A classmate has worked in a Fortune 500 foreign company for more than ten years. Now he is doing business while using the company's resources to open his own store.

There is also a classmate who works in a central enterprise. He often tells me that he is worried that he will not be able to find a job after losing his job because he can only write materials and has no money-making skills.

Some people do it by themselves, which is very hard. For example, open a Didi like my husband, or open a small factory, shop, etc., and do some small business.

I feel that there is no place for us middle-aged people in the workplace.

I don’t regret changing jobs outside the system.

Wang Yizhi, an Internet practitioner

has been away from the system for more than a year. The actual “anxiety” is stronger than I expected when I resigned. At the same time, there were also surprises beyond anxiety

html When I was 135 years old, I left the "commission" and came to the "company", moving from within the system to outside the system. This was a difficult decision. At that time, I was filled with anxiety about the uncertainty of my future career and life.

But I still choose to change jobs. Over the years, I have been paying close attention to the impact of the Internet on economic society and personal life. When I was 35 years old and began to think about the next ten years of my life, I decided not to just watch, but to participate in it.

Today, it has been more than a year since I left the system. Looking back on the past and looking at the "now" according to the "ancient", I feel quite emotional.

From the time I graduated from college until I left last year, I worked for ten years in a company within the system that I am deeply proud of. During this period, he was also sent to work in poverty-stricken areas to provide assistance. In the past ten years, I have gradually grown from a passionate young man with high ambitions to a department head who turns his passion into daily pragmatic work. Over the past ten years, I have gained priceless knowledge, experience and friendship. I will always be proud of my former "unit".

maintains the love for the "unit" and the cause, and on this basis, in-depth exploration, regardless of gains and losses, and bold practice are the principles that I have always adhered to inside and outside the system. For this reason, I have been favored by the system and recognized outside the system. This is what I understand to be common within and outside the system.

Working outside the system, the "anxiety" is actually far more intense than I expected when I resigned. At the same time, there are also surprises outside of anxiety.

is first of all a change in concept. It is not easy to break the inherent perception of one's own identity. Especially when dealing with staff who are full of "official aura" within the system, it is easy for people to miss the aura of their past identities, which in turn creates a negative contrast, which is frustrating. But in reality, I broke out of my own limitations and became broader.

The second is response to rapid changes. The market situation is changing rapidly, which also determines that market-oriented companies are changing rapidly in terms of specific strategies, structures, and personnel. If we can embrace this change and resolve this pressure, we will unknowingly become stronger and become a better version of ourselves.

Then there is time management. Without the system, the "9 to 5" working style is gone forever. It is necessary to complete heavy work tasks, take time to exercise and rest, and provide high-quality companionship and a rich and colorful life to your family. I also gradually developed stronger time management skills.

In short, I don’t regret the choice I made when I was 35 years old.

35-year-old female teacher who resigned to "see the world" said this...

Gu Shaoqiang, the person involved in the "most emotional resignation letter"

When I resigned from my teaching position in a key middle school, I was 35 years old, and I didn't have any worries or panic in my heart. I have strong learning ability and practical ability, and I am not worried about my future life. I believe that this world will always have its own place, and my material requirements are not very high.

In 2015, at the age of 35, I wrote the resignation letter that went viral on the Internet: "The world is so big, I want to go Take a look." This letter was jokingly called "the most emotional resignation letter in history."

Before resigning, I was a psychology teacher at a key middle school. I had a stable job and good pay, but when I resigned, I didn't have any worries or panic in my heart. I have strong learning ability and practical ability, and I am not worried about my future life. I believe that there will always be a place for myself in this world, and my requirements for material things are not very high.

In addition, my family also gave me support. My mother has taught us since childhood that a person should be independent and brave, not attached or clinging, and not trapped by some so-called material things. My mother herself is someone who can travel the world on her own.

Now I teach my daughter the same way, you have to have your own life and your own plan. As for whether it is good or bad, you have to experience it yourself to know. My daughter's nickname is "Xiao Yu'er", which means "If you are not a fish, how can you know the joy of a fish". Your parents cannot tell you whether your life choices are good or bad. You must experience it yourself.

When I wrote my resignation letter, I felt that I could have a new chapter in my life. Because in the past 11 years, my life as a psychology teacher has been very full. I have had enough profound and beautiful experiences to start a new journey. And I have a lot of dreams and a lot of things I want to do. After

resigned, I started a completely different life. I came to a relatively remote ancient town from the city and lived a very simple life. In the past, as a teacher, I needed to prepare lessons and give lectures, but as a female innkeeper, I need to take care of the inn and deal with various problems that arise in the inn.

But I think everyone in our family has such a spirit. The more challenges we encounter, the more excited we become. In these four years, I have encountered many challenges. For example, if a guest gets drunk and causes trouble, or the hotel suddenly loses power, or a water pipe suddenly bursts... I can handle it calmly every time. If I were to run any inn now, I should be able to handle more than 80% of the problems easily.

In the four years since I opened an inn, the world I have seen is more of the spiritual world of people. But I basically spend about two months traveling every year.

The sentence I wrote when I resigned was not simply that I wanted to see the natural landscape.The human spiritual world itself is what I want to see as a psychology teacher.

While running the inn, I had my own daughter. She started traveling with my husband and me when she was three months old. So far, she has been to all other provinces except Tibet and Xinjiang.

Now, my daughter is about to be three years old. She will start kindergarten and slowly have her own life. I also have more time for myself. So I want to become a psychology teacher again. After all, I still have very deep feelings for this profession. I resigned back then, not because I was tired, but because I had many other dreams.

So I recently moved to Mianyang . There is a group of very interesting friends here, and we can do some psychological work together.

Currently, my plan is to make my psychology major better and serve more people. As for the future, I don’t think that far ahead. If one day, I feel that there is a more wonderful world in the distance worth seeing, then our family of three may start a new journey together.

Things in the future will be more exciting because they are unknown.

Expert Q&A

"Old people" in the workplace should exploit their strengths and avoid their weaknesses

Reporter: How did the "35-year-old crisis" in the workplace come about?

Chen Mingquan: As far as the profession of programmers is concerned, there is a strange profession in China: after the age of 30, if you are still writing code and not doing management work, you will be a failure in life.

Driven by this career outlook, many people hurriedly transitioned into management without fully exercising their hard-core abilities in the early stages of their careers when their professional abilities were average. After people like

reach their 30s, if their career fluctuates, it will indeed no longer be easy to find a job. This is the current situation of the "35-year-old crisis" in the Internet industry.

Judging from age, this kind of person should have rich work experience, but quality experience is very short, and people at this stage have high income requirements. This will of course lead companies to recruit younger and less demanding people.

I have met many older American programmers and professional managers, and have worked with them for a long time. They are in their fifties and sixties, have strong professional abilities and rich experience. These veteran programmers are valuable assets to the team. The experience brought by age is a plus for them and does not harm their professional competitiveness.

Zhang Xu: Some types of work and professions require experience accumulation, such as doctors and lawyers. But it needs to be acknowledged that some occupations are related to energy and physical fitness. For example, in specific industries, overtime and 996 are common. Objectively speaking, middle-aged employees in these industries will have some challenges in time allocation.

This means that when there are people with more senior working experience in the job market, they must make use of their strengths and avoid their weaknesses. It is not about spending time and energy, but about summing up experience and methods, learning to think deeply, and using skill to do business well. Let yourself always remain competitive in the workplace and learn throughout your life.

Liu Jianbin: As an investor, I have noticed that the 35-year-old phenomenon exists not only in the workplace, but also in the entrepreneurial circle. In the past 10 years, a large number of excellent entrepreneurs born in the 1980s and even the 1990s have emerged. They have strong innovation capabilities but are not good at controlling costs and risks. Ofo is a typical case. Society should not only pay attention to the phenomenon of 35-year-olds in the workplace, but investors should also be alert to the phenomenon of younger people in the entrepreneurial circle.

Be wary of "rejuvenation" becoming formalism

Reporter: Some companies are eliminating middle-aged employees and rejuvenating their personnel structure. How do you view such incidents?

Du Jiangyong: The phenomenon of younger personnel structure mostly occurs in emerging industries such as Internet companies and certain lower-level talent recruitment. Most of these positions do not have high knowledge and technology content, and youth can easily become an advantage. On the other hand, competition in modern enterprises is fierce, and those who fail to meet job requirements will be dismissed, not just those over 35 years old.

Li Zhiqiang: In many industries, especially the Internet, due to its characteristics such as long working hours, complex labor intensity, and rapid knowledge update requirements, the talent elimination cycle is becoming shorter and shorter.When the outside world interprets the group characteristics of ordinary workers in the Internet industry, they should make an evaluation based on the industry's own characteristics, and cannot simply make a judgment of "illegality" based on the age characteristics of those working in the industry.

Yan Tian: The "one-size-fits-all" approach to eliminating older employees based on their age may intuitively lack sufficient justification. It incorporates the prejudice that "older people will definitely not be able to do well" and is suspected of constituting discrimination.

However, older employees are “older at the top and younger at the bottom”, have heavy family burdens, and are often not as good as younger employees in physical condition; in some industries where the knowledge structure is updated rapidly, although older employees have experience advantages, they may also fall behind. It is not completely unreasonable for enterprises to hope to "replace old products with new ones" based on cost-benefit analysis.

The question is, should the law accept this reason? Older employees are the backbone of the family. Their unemployment will seriously affect other family members. Large-scale unemployment will have a greater social impact. The country must be cautious about this.

Ding Daoshi : Today, the rejuvenation of the Internet industry has become "politically correct". Some companies, especially giant companies, have laid off a large number of old people in a short period of time for the political correctness of "rejuvenating the team", allowing a large number of young people to take up core management positions. This is a formalistic mistake of "rejuvenating for the sake of rejuvenation". From the perspective of the stability of the team and the long-term development of the company, it does more harm than good.

Some "age thresholds" are necessary

Reporter: How to judge whether the "age threshold" in recruitment constitutes discrimination?

Du Jiangyong: my country’s relevant laws and the International Labor Organization Convention No. 111 that China ratified and acceded to in 2005 have a basic definition of age discrimination. As long as it is an unreasonable age limit that is not necessarily related to the specific inherent requirements of the job, it will It can be considered age discrimination.

However, when companies set "age thresholds" when recruiting, we cannot simply regard it as age discrimination. For enterprises, the nature of work is different and the job requirements are also different, so the requirements for workers are also different. Some jobs have special requirements regarding age, education, experience, etc. In this case, it is understandable for us to recruit according to the requirements of the specific job and set age limits.

Li Zhiqiang: It is illegal for companies to raise age requirements when recruiting. Unless there are clear provisions in laws and regulations, or there are special requirements for the industry or position.

Although my country's "Labor Law" and other basic laws clearly state that enterprises have autonomy in employment, the prerequisite is that it must be exercised in accordance with the law. Therefore, companies cannot use age as an explicit recruitment term on this basis, which violates the prohibition of discrimination in laws and regulations.

Yan Tian: The so-called age discrimination in employment generally refers to treating job seekers or employees of different ages differently without any legally permitted reasons.

Not all "age thresholds" constitute age discrimination. For example, most first-time civil servant positions require applicants to be no more than 35 years old, and the Ministry of Public Security requires that drivers holding A1 driver's licenses and driving buses must be no more than 60 years old, etc. These are generally considered legal.

The key to judging whether the "age threshold" constitutes age discrimination is whether there is a legally acceptable reason for setting the "threshold". If a certain age is necessary to be qualified for the position, then the "age threshold" is legal; conversely, if age is not relevant to the qualification for the position, setting the "age threshold" is purely based on prejudice, which is of course illegal. In reality, the situation is often between these two extremes. The relationship between age and whether you are qualified for the job is not so absolute, and it is difficult to judge.

The best way to improve one's own status is to improve one's own quality.

Reporter: Although some recruitments do not have clear age requirements, candidates above a certain age will not be considered. Can applicants safeguard their rights against such implicit age discrimination?

Li Zhiqiang: In theory, there is no way to deal with implicit discrimination. For example, for an employment discrimination complaint filed by an applicant in a case, the employer can be asked to explain the legal and legitimate reasons for not hiring through direct questioning.If it cannot be explained, it can be considered as employment discrimination.

For group cases, take the age of 35 as an example. If almost no one after the age of 35 is admitted, and most of the admissions are before the age of 35, the employer can be required to explain the legal and legitimate reasons on the grounds that the results are obviously doubtful. If it cannot be explained, it can be considered as employment discrimination. In addition, in practice, we must first clarify the legal supervision or evaluation entities that have the right to inquire in accordance with the law, and provide them with sufficient procedural rights protection.

Of course, this is only a rough system design concept. In practice, it is difficult to completely eliminate or eradicate implicit discrimination.

Du Jiangyong: Regarding the issue of invisible age restrictions, the current law cannot provide effective help. To deal with the crisis brought about by aging, the only way for workers to improve their professional skills is to improve their professional skills.

Yan Tian: Implicit discrimination often occurs when the law is more effective in combating explicit discrimination. Currently in our country, it is basically impossible for applicants to protect their rights due to this type of implicit age discrimination by employers.