Dave Shea spent all of 2011 looking for work. Laid off from his post at a youth-marketing agency in November 2010, the creative director answered hundreds of job posts and went on dozens of interviews brandishing an impressive resume.

Shea has built websites and filled them with content. He has created online games. He has devised TV, print and radio ads working for agencies big and small – and won awards along the way. Witty, quick and pleasantly self-deprecating, he carries a conversation.

Yet time and again during his job search he received polite rejection letters explaining that his background, while estimable, simply didn’t fit the profile of someone who is, as more than one recruiter put it, “cutting-edge.”

Shea, 56, works on a Madison Avenue that more than ever is no country for “old” men, defined as anyone 55 or older.

If you’re in that age range and not already in a senior post at an agency, your chances of finding one are slim. If you’re among the many older employees whose positions were cut during the recession, time is working against you: The longer you’re out of the workforce, the more disconnected you become and the harder it is to re-enter.

Your experience also works against you, and that’s a bitter pill.

“I’m a happy-go-lucky guy, but believe me, I got depressed and there were weeks where I thought ‘This just sucks,’” said Shea. He was sitting in his home office, its walls covered with the Trix Rabbit and Lucky the Leprechaun, souvenirs from decades of working on General Mills ads.

“How does anybody out there not have a need for what I’ve got?” Shea wondered. He said he can’t help but feel that “it’s probably the gray hair more than anything else,” he said.

Most shops won’t admit it readily, but gray-hair phobia is a reality in the digital era. With agencies continually restructuring and changing models to keep pace with the public’s media consumption habits, adland is right to be digitally obsessed. But most in the industry wrongly assume that the only people who grasp digital are fresh out of college.

That presumption has spawned an undercurrent of resentment as agencies refit themselves for the digital world – a process that often entails stripping out layers of longtime employees in favor of a newer breed of creatives and strategists believed to better grasp the increasingly complex media environment.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of the labor force unemployed for at least a year hit an all-time high in second-quarter 2010. It continued to hover at record levels even as the overall jobless rate began inching down.

But that reduction is not helping Shea and his ilk in advertising. Companies conducting mass layoffs during the recession found it easier to revamp and make wholesale changes. When jobs return, younger digital talent generally benefits.

According to the Ad Age DataCenter, agencies accounted for 189,700 jobs when the U.S. economy was peaking before the recession in 2007. By January 2010, the sector had 30,000 fewer jobs. As of November 2011 agencies had regained 17,000 jobs, but not the same ones that were lost.

It’s unclear how many 55-and-over ad workers are among the long-term unemployed, but industry recruiters will tell you it’s a lot, possibly thousands. The aging of the ad business in the digital era is an issue the industry hasn’t even begun to wrestle with in earnest, but it’s one that could be a key determinant of its future. What’s the incentive for young people to enter a field where constantly changing technology is likely to make them obsolete in what should be the prime of their career? How can older employees stay current? Is more training needed?

And then there’s the human element.

Unless you’ve been there, it’s difficult to understand how being out of work for an extended period can affect a person’s confidence and self-esteem.

The Pew Research Center’s most-recent findings show that nearly 40% of people unemployed for more than six months report lower self-respect and are more likely to seek professional help for depression or other emotional problems. And more than 40% say the recession negatively affected their ability to achieve long-term career goals, often citing being forced to settle for a job with lower salary and fewer benefits than their previous one.

Do Canadian agencies or marketers suffer from ‘gray-hair phobia?’ Post your thoughts in our comment section.

There’s more! To read the full article in Advertising Age, click here.