I'm 32 years old, but am getting very frustrated because whenever I speak to recruiters/agents, they seem to make assumptions about me based on my age. In particular, I'm used to working with people older than myself, and get frustrated when the agents/recruiters I speak to try and group me together with what I can only describe as immature kids. I'm not into working until 10pm every night then going out on the lash until 2am, nor do I consider hanging around outside a pub for Friday night drinks a 'perk'. I work hard to get a job done, but being expected to live the lifestyle of kids +/- 5 years my own age is getting me down. Additionally, I'm working at principal consultant level, yet almost every recruitment agent I speak to tries to hoodwink me into a senior consultant role, having made assumptions about my age. I went to one interview, and felt like I should have been interviewing them (in all fairness, they were reasonably professional, but obviously couldn't see the wood for the trees and thought they knew substantially more about what they were doing for a living than they actually did). What can I do to break out of this situation? I'm guessing it may just require an adjustment on my part, but it's very frustrating.

Maybe you are talking with all the wrong recruiters, or inexperienced ones. They should be pushing on the fact that you are a young principal (i.e. fast tracking) rather than trying to hedge you into your peer group by age. But then I don't know which co you work for and titles/ranks vary across the industry so a PC in one firm can easily be classed as SC in another.

Well, I'd start by updating your CV. These days you no longer need to list your age on your CV. Also, be sure that your CV reflects the bredth of your experience -- that's surely the basis for determining the appropriate level for you?For what it's worth, there are plenty of early-to-mid 30s partners and directors out there, so it isn't about your age...

It's a very small company which many people would never have heard of. I think that's half the problem for me. My job title isn't actually "principal consultant" (believe it or not, we don't actually have job titles - we're all just "Consultants" albeit some have more responsibility than others), so I think that's working against me also. Looking at the MCA consultant grades, and based on my own consultancy experience, I'm working at principal level.Also re: the CV point - good idea, I think I'll remove the section that refers to my age. I wonder what difference this will make!

If you work for an unknown company, you are always going to have trouble moving to a major player. rightly or wrongly (rightly probably), they are going to look at your experience as being different to the experience of progressing through the ranks in their company - thus you need to start at a lower level. It is not about quality, necessarily, but you do need to learn the company's methodology before progressing to principal level. I can understand your frustration but you cannot claim to be a principal consultant when you are actually a very experienced consultant from a small firm.