I Can’t Let Facebook Wreck My Carefully Crafted Résumé

Age bias is real. Dive into settings to remove the year you were born

Edward C. Baig,

AARP

Comments

Published July 30, 2024

a ballon with a five and zero about to be popped

Photo Collage: AARP; (Source: Facebook; Getty Images (3))

Please tell me how to hide my age on Facebook. I’ve age-proofed my résumé but worry that people still see how old I am because of social media.

We’ve all heard the well-worn cliché about age being just a number, especially since Christie Brinkley declared that 70 years old, which she hit in February, is the new 40.

But few of us have Brinkley’s fame or opportunities, and sadly, discrimination against mature adults is age-old. Forgive the pun.

I understand why you might want to conceal your birthday on the world’s largest social network. Prospective employers will look and maybe even ask you for friend status.

Despite laws that prohibit potential employers from screening out older candidates before giving them a chance to interview, age bias is real. And those who get hired may be first out the door when companies downsize.

Nearly two-thirds of workers 40 and older have experienced age discrimination at work, according to AARP Research. Of those who face it, nearly 9 in 10 consider it commonplace.

Ageism is not just a workplace thing. It’s rampant among some young people. You may even catch a whiff of it from your own kids or grandkids.

Vanity plays a part: If would-be romantic partners believe you’re younger than you are because of the way you look or behave, why dissuade them from thinking that? Granted, if a relationship progresses, you’ll need to disclose at some point how old you are.

My own late mother was tight-lipped about her age. And we all know that age has become a hot-button political issue.

Given how much of our private information is spread across the internet, if someone wants to go to the trouble of figuring out your age, the truth is that they don’t need to be much of a detective to find the answer.

You can control which of your friends see what information

Still, you can make it a little bit harder for them by not making your birthday readily available as part of your profile on Facebook.

Ask The Tech Guru

On a computer, start by clicking your circle profile picture on the upper right corner of the screen. Click Settings & privacy | Settings and in the left rail under Meta Accounts Center, click Personal details, then Personal details a second time. Listed are the year, month and day that you were born, which you can edit if the information is wrong.

Click your Birthday | Who can see your birthday on Facebook.

Next, click Change visibility on Facebook. Scroll down under Basic Info to your birth date and birth year. Start by clicking your birth date to determine who can see your information. Then choose among these options: Public, which means anyone on or off Facebook; Friends, meaning your Facebook friends; Only Me; Custom; Close Friends; and Limited Profile.

These last three choices give you more granular control. Choosing Custom lets you cherry-pick Facebook friends to include or exclude.

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Click Done after deciding. Repeat this exercise for the birth year.

This drill is similar on mobile. Start by tapping the three bars to access Settings, which you’ll find at the bottom right corner of the Facebook app on iPhone and upper right on Android.

Lest you wonder, I let my own Facebook friends view the day I was born because, quite honestly, hearing from so many of them is a thrill. I return those well-wishes on all their birthdays.

But I keep the year I was born to myself.

Bonus tip: Use a tracker when checking your luggage

Getty Images

Many of you will fly somewhere this summer and check luggage. My advice: Place a tracker in the suitcase.

I was glad I did after a bag went missing on a flight home from a recent vacation in Portugal.

My wife and I began our journey at Faro Airport on Aer Lingus and had a late-night layover in Dublin before making a connection to United Airlines. The suitcase, which apparently was not scanned properly, didn’t follow me to Newark Airport in New Jersey.

Since I had placed a $29 Apple AirTag inside, I could pretty much tell where the luggage was most of the time. I periodically shared screenshots with the bag recovery team at United, though it wasn’t exactly comforting when a customer service agent told my wife and me that we knew more about the bag’s whereabouts than they did.

I’d like to believe that our little AirTag helped the airlines locate the suitcase, which made it out of Portugal to Ireland and not somehow to North Korea. Other tracker brands include Chipolo, Cube, Eufy, Samsung SmartThings and Tile.

Anyway, a happy ending: I got the bag and its contents back — but five days later.

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Edward C. Baig covers technology and other consumer topics. He previously worked for USA Today, BusinessWeek, U.S. News & World Report and Fortune, and is author of Macs for Dummies and coauthor of iPhone for Dummies and iPad for Dummies. Follow him on LinkedIn; Threads; and X, formerly known as Twitter.