Feature Article: Mature Job-Seeker Quiz: What Are You Communicating to Hiring Managers?
Special Feature: Older Workers/Job-Seekers: Use Your Age to Your Advantage
Bonus Feature: Managing Age, Currency, and Impression When You're a Mature Worker
Quintessential Reading: QuintZine's Review of Career Books
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
Latest Additions: What's New on Quintessential Careers
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search
Editor's Note: About this Issue...
It has been a long time since we dedicated an issue to mature workers. I
remember the date clearly because it was Sept. 10, 2001. How could anyone
know that the next day, the world would change forever?
In any case, we are long overdue for a QuintZine that looks at the issues of mature workers.
Publisher Dr. Randall Hansen offers a quiz that helps mature works scrutinize
the attitude they may be projecting to employers. Regular contributor
Joe Turner suggests using one's age as an advantage in the job search. New
contributor Jean Baur tells mature job-seekers how to appear current
and manage the impression they project. And another new contributor,
Nancy Miller, reviews the book How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free.
--Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy@quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Mature Job-Seeker Quiz
Mature Job-Seeker Quiz: What Are You Communicating to Hiring Managers? A Quintessential Careers Quiz
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
Whether you like it or not -- and if you're a mature job-seeker you may have already
experienced it -- older job-seekers often face misconceptions and discrimination during the
hiring process. But as with any other perception issue, not all the blame can be placed on hiring
managers. Some mature job-seekers often help perpetuate the stereotypes about older workers.
What kind of image are you portraying to hiring managers, many of whom are much
younger than you? Are you branding yourself as an "old dog" or a hot commodity?
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succeed in their career goals.
Older Workers/Job-Seekers: Use Your Age to Your Advantage
by Joe Turner
While it's true that not all employers will be gung-ho about hiring, or even retaining,
older workers in the coming years, the overall statistics might well be on your
side, if you're 50+ years. As has been reported often enough, the limited numbers
of workers in the Gen-Y age group will not match the rising need for workers over the next 10 years.
This discrepancy means that employers will be faced with more vacancies that force
them to look at alternate labor sources. Sure, they can outsource, further automate,
or contract their staffing ranks, but these approaches will not suffice in all cases.
The plain fact is that you hold many advantages over your younger colleagues, but you will need
to play your age to your advantage.
Managing Age, Currency, and Impression When You're a Mature Worker
by Jean Baur
Among the common myths I hear over and over in my work as a career counselor is "I can't get a
job anywhere because I am too old."
If you're a baby boomer like me, you were raised to believe that the worst thing you could say is
those two terrible words: "I can't." So when I hear these phrases from my clients (who have been
downsized after very successful careers), I tell them the story of my client -- we'll call him "Bill"
-- who groaned.
Planning for retirement should start at the beginning of your career rather than at the end.
It's never too early to plan for retirement, writes Ernie J. Zelinski. In his book,
How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free, Zelinski says that the key to a happy retirement is
preparation. You don't suddenly become the person you want to be when you retire.
Zelinski's book reinforces the need to find your purpose in life well before you retire. It
is just as important to know how you want to spend your time as it is to know how much
money you will need. As Zelinski shows in his stories and anecdotes, you can enjoy a happy
retirement if you begin preparing early.
Note: Half of the book reviewed here, How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free, is available as
a no-cost PDF download here.
Find Your Career Future. Learn More About Yourself
Career Maze is designed to help every job seeker, at every level, make smarter
career choices. Individualized to reflect your unique personality and written in
"plain English," it is thorough and easy to complete.
Once completing the assessmemt, your 2-part report includes:
A specific, career-relevant discussion of your workplace personality
A list of job types compatible with your personality
Career Maze encourages you to think about tapping your full potential to find your future.
Senior Service America, Inc. (SSAI) is a non-profit organization that provides
civic engagement and employment opportunities for adults over the age
of 55 who wish to re-enter the workforce.
SSAI is one of the sponsors of the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), participants
in which are paid minimum wage while they gain marketable job skills working part-time
in non-profit and public organizations, including senior centers, schools, and libraries. The program
provides a win-win for participants and their communities: Participants help community
organizations extend their reach and capabilities, while developing their own job skills, self-confidence,
and a restored sense of self-worth.
SSAI operates in the 16 states of AL, CA, IA, IL, IN, MA, MD, MN, MS, NC, NY, OH, PA, TN, TX, and WI.
HireFlyer -- a job site where job-seekers can
search job postings (by keywords, location, industry) as well as create a skill sets profile and receive realtime job postings
specifically tailored to your respective industry, profession, and unique skill sets via e-mail or text messaging. No cost to job-seekers.
Job Forum Canada --
a great Canadian job information site, where job-seekers can find Canadian job market and
immigration discussion forums, find job listings, chat about your first job in Canada, get answers to general immigration
questions, and find job articles and resources.Must join community to gain access to all features. No cost to job-seekers.
oDesk -- an outsourcing/independent contractor job
site, where freelancers and consultants can search and apply for jobs in a wide variety of category
and skill sets as well as develop a detailed profile to attract hiring organizations. Fee-based.
Operations-Jobs.com -- a job site for
job-seekers looking for jobs in manufacturing, operations, production, transportation, logistics,
supply chain, and procurement. Job-seekers can browse or search job listings (by keyword, category,
location, employment type), post your resume, as well as set up an email job-alert. No cost to job-seekers.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
A recent report from the AARP Public Policy Institute found that a staggering 1.3 million people aged 55 and
over are unemployed. For mature job-seekers, a rough economy, changing business practices, and increased
reliance on technology can pose significant barriers in a hunt for a new career. Sixty-seven-year-old
Larry Lightfoot is a mature job-seeker who met this challenge and successfully found an interesting and
relevant new job -- post-retirement -- through a job-search engine, in this case,
SimplyHired.com.
An airline pilot for 25 years, Larry decided to go back to work only five years after retiring
because - after a lifetime of work -- he was just tired of staying home all day. Never having
used the Internet to search for a job, and not really sure what type of job he was looking for,
Larry scanned various job sites (such as RetirementJobs.com) before he discovered
SimplyHired.com. Larry immediately liked the filtering capabilities on the SimplyHired.com
site and used the website almost exclusively until he obtained a job as a courier for a
pathology lab in Denver, CO -- which he loves because of its the flexible schedule.
Larry's advice to mature job seekers is to "think about your life experiences. What can
you use from your past that fits into today's world?" He counts himself lucky to have
found a fresh career that meets his needs and challenges him every day.
ExecuNet reports that a significant number of older workers are planning to delay their
retirement, and that's good news for the many companies that in recent years have acknowledged
they have been unprepared to facilitate the transfer of key business knowledge to a new generation
of white-collar employees.
A recent poll by Watson Wyatt, a global consulting firm, finds that 44 percent of those aged 50 and over
plan to delay their retirement, compared with only 25 percent of those under 40. Although
the average planned retirement age for all employees is 65 years old, half (50 percent)
of those aged 50 or more plan to retire at age 66 or later.
Watson Wyatt also reports these reasons workers aged 50-64 are postponing retirement:
76 percent cited decline in 401K value
63 percent cited high cost of healthcare
62 percent cited higher prices for basic necessities
"If you're waiting for your employer or the government to establish telecommuting policies," says Pat
Katepoo of WorkOptions, "you could be sitting in traffic for years to come. Taking the initiative to propose your
own telecommuting arrangement is a plausible near-term solution."
Katepoo is offering a no-cost teleseminar, "Telecommute Now! How to Get a YES to
Your Request to Work from Home" on Thursday, July 30, from 3 pm to 3:45 pm, Eastern Time.
"For millions of employees, a computer and a phone are all that's needed to get most
of the job done. Why drive miles and hours every day to use them?" Katepoo says.
Quintessential Careers Press Announces Our Latest Book: The Quintessential Guide to
Job Search 2.0: Advancing Your Career Through Online Social Media.
The
Quintessential Guide to Job Search 2.0: Advancing Your Career Through Online Social Media,
by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., and Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D., provides six chapters to guide you
through the next revolution in online job search. Since job boards, vestiges of the first
revolution in online job search, should still be part of the job-seeker's toolkit, this
book helps you navigate those while also considering the future of job boards. The book
looks at building your personal brand, teaches you to make the most of social-media venues
in the job search, guides you in creating a digital presence, suggests you consider blogging,
and discusses ways to integrate multimedia elements into your job search.
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QuintCareers Network of Empowering Blogs
What are QuintCareers empowering blogs?
The Career Doctor Blog:
Especially for those who miss our former regular feature, Ask the Career Doctor, this blog each day features a question and answer from The
Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD.
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QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming issues of QuintZine:
* How Job Search is Like Online Dating
* The Confidence Factor
* Green Jobs
* De-Stressing Before an Interview
* More Cover-Letter Components
* Finding Your First Real Job
* Empty Nest Job-seekers
* How to Stay Motivated at Work
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Book reviews
. . . and much, much more...
