Discouraged to Encouraged - The Older Job Seeker

I had a woman in a job search skills class the other day who said that she received feedback after an interview that she wasn’t energetic. Energetic? Who, over the age of 12 is energetic? The problem is that the woman is about 50-ish, has been looking for a job for months and in the interview may have unintentionally fallen into the typical aging workforce stereotype – that older workers:
· Don’t like change
· Are harder to train and motivate
· Are slower
· Are forgetful
· Are just old

She was indignant at the comment and blamed the interviewer. These days more than ever, companies know who they are looking for and there is a line out the door for that one job. You have a limited window to show your stuff and if you are invited in for an interview, an organization must have been mighty impressed with your resume. But if you interview like financial celebrity Ben Stein from Win Ben Stein’s Money (i.e. no energy), you may not be invited back. What does energy have to do with the graying side of the unemployment line? Apparently a lot.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported:
} Of the 11.1 million unemployed men and women in December 2008, 1.4 million were at least age 55
} For those ages 55 and older, the unemployment rate was 6.2% in April 2009, compared with 3.3% a year earlier
} Once unemployed, it takes older workers longer to find a new job.
} The number of older persons classified as discouraged by the Bureau of Labor Statistics nearly tripled from December 2007 to December 2008, rising from 53,000 to 154,000.

I never knew that the word discouraged is a term used to describe unemployment statistics. It is a classification for people who have basically given up looking for a job. According to an April, 2009 article in the Office of Publications and Special studies, “These individuals—referred to as “marginally attached to the labor force”—wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not actively searched for work in the past 4 weeks.”

So basically, they started looking for a job but couldn’t find anything, they may think they are too old, they may lack confidence due to education or credentials, the media reporting the scary unemployment figures have them figuring that there is nothing out there for them, and other reasons. Whatever the reason, they stop or slow down in their search. They are frustrated, discouraged and may give up. (BTW, the same may hold true to the over age 40 crew.)

The question is how can the older job seeker get out of the discouraged mindset and project energy? The rules for job seeking have changed and so have resumes and interviews. Here is one step to take.

Prepare: Assess yourself. Looking over your career and life, what were the things you enjoyed doing? What were you good at? Write down examples of these. Pull out old appraisals and look for examples of these areas. Don’t just look at the specific task. Look at the skills you used to complete the task. Did you like writing something, organizing something, brainstorming, working with your customers or peers? What did you like about volunteering? In other words what were you proud of? What were those exciting actions that you talked about at the dinner table? What are you good at AND what do you like to do?

Go on-line and look at the free assessment tools. They can measure your motivators, career interests and work styles. AARP has a few good suggestions. Do the results of these capture those areas that excite you?

On future blogs we’ll talk in more detail about preparing your resume and interviewing tips but for now, just prepare. What about those positive areas that you like and you are good at? Do you feel yourself sitting up taller and straighter? Did you find yourself relaxing and feeling good about yourself?

That feeling? That’s energy and it is NOT discouraging.

Welcome to The Flap

Welcome to The Flap. I am Nancy Anderson and I own Blackbird Learning Associates, a learning and development company in Central NJ. I opened shop in January, 2009 after spending 21 years with a major pharmaceutical company in Human Resources and Training.

I design and present courses in several topics - Generational Diversity, DiSC® Classic,IDX® Collaborative Skills for Teams and Job Search Skills including Job Search Skills for the Age 50+ Worker. I also design training and have created a number of programs in consulting skills, performance management and employee development.