Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
Job-hunting tips from the July 20, 2009, issue of
QuintZine.
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.
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,
