Five Tips To Help You Find Work After 50

Yesterday I had a long conversation with an individual conducting research on the job prospects for "mature" workers, which is code for people over 50. We covered a lot of territory and I thought that a few of the key points were worthy of a post on LifeTwo.

1. It's to find work when you are over 50. It's more than tough, it's brutal, frustrating and can take a very long time. But arduous job searches are not necessarily age specific. If you ask most 20-somethings out of college to describe their experiences looking for work and they are going to describe the same difficulties. Truth is that it is almost never easy to look for work when you are out of it.

2. Age isn't necessarily a disadvantage. The negative aspects of being old when looking for a job have been so thoroughly discussed that it is hardly necessary to go into them here. What gets far less coverage however are the benefits that can only come with years of experience. It's your task to figure out what the applicable ones are for the specific industry you are in. Hiring managers might be initially biased against you because of your age. That doesn't mean they don't want the best candidate. They do. What is likely is that they don't believe an older worker will the the best candidate and are using age bias to filter out the ones they don't think will make the cut. Your task is to present your case showing that you are in fact the best candidate. If you do you are highly likely to get the job regardless of the age differential between you and the other candidates. Is this hard? Of course it is but as we noted above job searching is always hard, age or not. It goes without saying that you should make sure that you do not stereotype yourself. You should be familiar with new technologies such as instant messaging, texting, blogging, and social networks. You might wonder why this is so important if you are not working at a technology company. The reasons are two-fold. First, being ignorant of such already-mainstream techniques will only serve to emphasize a negative stereotype that many people hold of older workers. Second, these tools are well-past just being used by teenagers to communicate and are now being deployed extensively within corporate environments. For example, more and more companies are using chat to communicate with different offices, adding blogs to the company intranet, and deploying viral marketing techniques along side their traditional marketing activities.

3. Do your homework. When you are going after a particular position you should know everything about it and the company. You should know who is interviewing you and their backgrounds. Ideally you will have found common links to them (mutual friends, contacts, coworkers) so that when you walk in to your interview you are able to immediately show common ground. Social networking tools are terrific for this, especially Facebook and LinkedIn.

4. Network-Network-Network. One of the biggest advantages of a mature worker is that they (should) have a significant network of people one phone call away to help them in any situation. Most professional positions depend on this. If you are a lawyer, accountant or consultant, the ability to get clients is as important as the work you do. Same for sales, PR, and marketing. The stronger and more relevant your rolodex the stronger of a candidate you will be. One of the best networking tools I know is LinkedIn and if you are not on it then you are missing out on a potentially very useful tool. I have used it to reconnect with many people who I had a positive professional relationship with but for various reasons had lost track. Over the past 2 years I have worked diligently on reconnecting with them (via LinkedIn) and it has been worth every minute of it. I also strongly suggest that you read this book on personal network building.

5. Talk to Marci Alboher. Marci wrote a book that has been life changing for many and we reviewed it here and interviewed her here. Marci believes that changing careers doesn't have to be as daunting as people think and that career change is healthy. Her book includes several methods for easing into a new career or trying one out before making the jump.

One thing to note is that as baby boomers continue to age, we are going to be reading more and more stories about industries facing worker shortages and then doing what they can to attract and retain older workers. For example, in today's Los Angeles Times is this story, "The priesthood is getting a boost from older ordinands, who bring special wisdom and challenges." Another recent example was a story about a major company raising the age of mandatory retirement because it wanted and needed to keep workers past 65.

Much more information at the LifeTwo Jobs and Careers section.