Differential treatment due to age has contributed to the prolonged unemployment of adults over 40 years old. Being labeled as "old" appears to be an entry point into differential treatment, but there have been few systematic studies of how we recognize someone as old. Using a social constructionist model, this study examined the following research questions: how "old age" is recognized and constructed by different groups of people in Anchorage, Alaska; how those constructions compare to constructions of age in national advertising media; and how those constructions are meaningful in the lives of older Alaskans, especially in the context of both looking for employment and within the workplace. The study used the concept of "cultural age markers, " those individual attributes, embodied or disembodied, that members of a culture use to recognize an individual as "old" or "older" to investigate these issues. Free listing revealed a list of characteristics that were coded into the following categories: Body/Physical Appearance, Personal Attributes, Health, and Time. Three of these categories, Body/Physical Appearance, Health, and Time, as well as a subset of Personal Attributes, Technology, were found to be salient in magazine advertising. Many of the age markers were salient in the experiences of older Alaskans both in their job search and in the workplace and were coded into the following topics: a) overt and covert differential treatment based on age in the context of job searching and employment, b) how age markers relating to performance, appearance, and experience, interact with both overt and covert differential treatment based on age, c) factors such as gender, ethnicity, government employment, and education, which mitigate differential treatment based on age in the context of employment, and d) some ways that older people may manifest resistance to age markers. However, it was not clear if the cultural age markers revealed are merely stereotypes about older people or are the actual mechanism by which Alaskans recognize someone as "old." The cultural age markers listed in the study should form the basis for further study of the issue.