I have worked in IT for the past 20+ years. Recently I lost my job due to contract cuts. Being I am an older employee, I know that I have been discriminated against due to my age when it comes to applying for a job or during the interview process. Unfortuneately this is hard to prove. Even though I can pass for 10+ years younger than my age, it is too easy to find out someones age via the Web. Recently I thought I finally found a job that was a great fit & age didn’t matter. The employer was in final hiring process verifying my professional references. They received several outstanding references however claimed they needed a reference from one of my past supervisors. This one was hard as my former bosses had retired & moved on. They also could not verify my Bachelors degree as the college I attended 24 years ago was no longer around. I know they were around in 1993 as my past company got my transcript from them with no problems. One Human Resources Rep said they needed my date of birth for the verification process. I reluctantly gave it however I thought this was illegal. Another strange item was that the IT hiring manager un-officially made me an offer of employment. This was before degree verification & before I gave my date of birth. What I need help with is being I no longer can contact my former college for degree verification, am I forced to leave this off my Resume’? Also, what should I do concerning my supervisory references who are either retired or moved out of the area? If there are any other pointers on how to handle the age discrimination factor, I would be very interested in hearing about these.