Andre

The vast majority of HR Directors did not enter HR in their 20s or 30s, and a significant number of HRDs only entered HR as an HRD! Understanding business and commerce are prerequisites in my opinion - as well as some HR knowledge of course, or knowing how to leverage the people who do have the knowledge.

Perhaps you need to ask yourself why you are still in a relatively junior role after 5 years in HR - expecting progression to happen will almost certainly lead to no progression happening. Like all things in life worth having, you need to work hard to achieve them. Progression takes effort, opportunity (look for it, don't wait for it) and to a degree luck - although as the great Jack Nicklaus is quoted as saying "people say I am a lucky golfer, and to a degree I agree - although it seems the more I practice the luckier I become".

In specific response to your questions:

'Old age and the passage of time teach all things' - Sophocles

"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics...."

A very old (and not entirely justified in all circumstances) semi-truism, but one I feel you should note in this case.

The patterns of people entering professions have altered radically over the last 20 years, as University education and Adult Higher-Education have "taken off". So there are certainly more "young people" at more senior levels in HR than there used to be; while older practitioners advance their careers on previous experience rather than BAs or MAs

The profession itself has also changed, as has the approach of business to HR (and its necessary accommodation at boardroom level) in response to changes in employment law over an even shorter time-period, so many opportunities have opened for those at an earlier stage of their career. Thus what you are seeing as a "pattern related to age" is, I suggest, more a concurrence of new business demand for degree-qualified people to polish boardroom seating, with a preponderance of older, far more life-experienced but less-commonly academically so, existing practitioners filling roles at ALL management levels (including the boardroom).

HR is also a "game of two halves" with life-experience (e.g. supporting interpersonal empathy and negotiating skills) every bit as important as academic qualification to effective practice; which is not necessarily much reflective of age but would certainly tend to affect the nature of decision-making by any Boardroom occupant in their 20's toward the mechanistic rather then the empathic, However the need/requirement driven by the type of business would then (for the same reasons) drive the reflected "age" of the appointee. So I do not think age is reflective overall of either the ease of securing a senior appointment, or indeed of Businesses' choices of appointee: It is "horses for courses" driven by the given business's perception of need and the fact there are now more Boardroom "courses" to run on!

P

Hi Andre
You still have twenty to twenty five working years left so I wouldn't be too concerned about your age. I would advise that you see your maturity and prior work experience as an asset not a liability. Ultimately employers want to staff who are problem solvers, use their own initiative and can work as part of a team. I suggest you focus on doing every task to the best of your ability and that you take every opportunity to grow and learn in the company you are with. You will increase your chances of promotion internally and of getting a higher position externally.