Over 50 And Looking For A Job. Tips For Older Workers

If you are over 50 and looking for a new job, you may well think that everybody is against you and that there are no suitable jobs for mature workers like you. I've included these guest articles because I think that they may help to throw some light on what the older workers, people who are over 50, can actually do to help themselves get back to work - even if you took early retirement. I've added some links to help you find jobs about half way down this page and then there are more links to help you develop your job search skills at the bottom of the page.

Employment Job Opportunities - A Challenge For Older Unemployed Workers

By Marshall Crum

Suffering a lay-off or losing a job can be a devastating experience for anyone, but can be particularly hard for an older worker. Many people are living this experience and the unemployment rate has reached levels not seen in decades. The down turn in the economy has affected many different industries and few people have jobs that are safe. Older workers may have a difficult time finding other employment opportunities in a particular field.

The challenges facing an older worker, or one who has many years of experience are compounded by the fact that there are many, many younger people looking for jobs and employment opportunities in the same field. In my experience, there are four things that an older worker may have to overcome. These are age, experience, education and perceived salary requirements.

1. Age is a barrier to many jobs and some job offers. Some (I should say many) companies with an opening in a technical profession want to get the most experience they can for the least amount of money. This will sometimes cause them to fill a position with a younger person who might be able to do the job, but at a wage or salary lower than they would have to pay an older person over 50.

2. The experience that a person gains from many years in a profession will make a job- seeker "over qualified" for many attractive positions. Experience is a two edged sword and most unemployed workers will have too little or too much. It is difficult to mask experience and be truthful on resumes and cover letters.

3. The time when a person could be a self-taught or self-educated professional is over. When I got in the work force many years ago, it was not uncommon to find non-degreed electrical, or electronic engineers and people in other technical fields who were considered to be experts. A college degree has become an entry-level requirement in many fields and has become a requirement looked for by many companies when a job opening is posted. Many times, a job needs list is created by a person who does not have a clear understanding of the skills required for a particular job and starts with an education requirement.

In our electronic age, when resumes and applications are transferred over the internet a lot of older folks will be removed a computer matching the resume with a job needs list and will not be considered even though they may be otherwise qualified.

4. Age and experience combine to create the third hardest thing to overcome, perceived salary requirements. Many professional people have been out of work for a very long time and many will be willing to accept lower salaries than they had just to get back in the work force. Many times, the salary is not as important as becoming a contributing member of society. A lot of professional people have taken low paying part time jobs or done pro bono or volunteer work with various organizations just to stay busy and occupied.

There are many things available. Joining some social networks, writing about your experience and staying touch with your peers is an important step in finding employment. Many older workers have experience and skills that are marketable and can lead to self-employment.

It is easy to let stress, anxiety and depression get the best of us when we are facing the challenge of unemployment. Successful people will accept the challenge and find ways to cope with them. The economy will improve, and the right job will come along. Until then, it may be necessary to look in other directions and find something that is challenging in a positive way that could lead to a satisfying career. The most important thing is to keep working at something, look for the positive result in your challenges and don't give up.

Marshall Crum has joined the ranks of the unemployed and is taking his own advise. He has been interested in self-improvement for a long time and has listened to and read material by some of the great motivational speakers. He enjoys writing articles about health and safety issues and other subjects of interest that provide help for people who are looking for ways to improve themselves. Check out his retirement website and see what he has done to combat unemployment and get leads and information about retirement as a career change.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marshall_Crum

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If you are over 50 and retired early and you are now looking for a job again, don't think that everybody is against you and that there are no suitable jobs for mature workers like you. I've included this section with some useful links for people over 50 because I think that there are all sorts of opportunities for the older workers, people who are over 50 or even older and with some effort you can actually help yourself get back to work and start feeling useful and earning once more. With all of the experience you have built up, you could easily put your knowledge to good use by writing articles for sale or for publication by sites such as helium.com.

Useful Job Finding Links

Here are some ideas of jobs or businesses to start as a way of earning a living and using your knowledge and experience when you are over 50. I'll add more links to this list as we go on.

• Find A Job

• Start Selling on eBay

• Writing As A New Career

• Interim Jobs

• Gardening As A Business

• Start Writing CVs For People

• Market Research Opinion Surveys
• Midlife Career Change
• Is Active Retirement An Option?

All of the links are on this site and will open a new window when you click. More links to help you with your skills at the bottom of the page.

How Do You Know If You're Ready to Return to Work After Retirement?

Returning to work after retirement can be a daunting decision. You've spent your life in a career you enjoyed, so now is supposed to be the time to sit back, relax, travel, and enjoy your golden years in peace. The only problem is, for some older people, senior employment is unavoidable due to financial reasons.

There are multiple reasons for the return to work into senior employment. Read the article: Work After Retirement

Other useful links in the over 50 section:

• How to analyse your skills
  Analyse Your Skills by listing your top ten achievements or career events that you are most proud of; and when you're over 50 you probably have a lot of them. You should do this in the way I've just shown you by looking at your Achievements and then consider your Transferable Skills which are your richest source of information providing concrete and tangible evidence of what you have done so far. To describe them, use an active verb at the beginning of the phrase, and you’ll hear how much more powerful it sounds.

• Writing your CV
  If you're going to write your own CV, please take some time to understand why I recommend they are written in a certain way; my experience comes from years of recruiting people both as a Recruitment Consultant and as an employer, so I have seen and written thousands of CVs and know what is needed. If you're over 50 and been in one job for a long time you may not have the necessary knowledge to produce a great CV.

• Job interview preparation
  Interviews are not difficult if you take the trouble to do a little preparation beforehand and the truth is that the interviewer actually wants you to do well because it makes her job a lot easier.

  The eleven strategies I've laid out below, won't take a lot of preparing for because they are mostly just good commonsense, but too many people seem to insist on 'winging it' which is not a very good interview strategy.

• About your key strengths
  Understanding your Key Strengths and being able to talk comfortably and convincingly about what makes YOU the ideal candidate to hire is one of the most important self describing skills you must master because it also enables you to answer the job interview questions applicants commonly have to answer.

• Networking for jobs
  This is one of the most important business and career development skills anyone can learn. It's important for everyone and is particularly effective for finding job vacancies, especially management jobs and when you're over 50. When done in the right way, it can open up all sorts of new business opportunities and make new contacts who can help you in the future. Yet, even to a seasoned professional, heeding this valuable career advice, it can seem intimidating or positively scary some of the time.

• Advantages of positive thinking
  To most people positive thinking and success means doing better than someone else. But if someone else fails at something and we don't, does this mean that success is just a pipe dream or a mistake? So long as the mistake is not ours then I suppose the answer might be yes.

• Reactions to job loss
  You would be unusual if you didn't have emotional reactions to job loss; losing something as important as your job. For most people their job is a significant part of their 'persona' so losing your job is like losing not only your livelihood and the income you receive, but also a part of your identity.

  With many sources speculating about the size of coming public sector job cuts, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has forecast 490,000 job losses by 2015 and 610,000 by 2016 in the UK public sector.

  Although expecting the private sector to generate over 1.34 million new jobs in the same period, it means a massive number of people will be in transition during the next six years and helping them to deal with their reactions to job loss, as well as helping them to find new jobs will be a major challenge.

• Build up your self confidence
  Self Confidence inevitably takes a knock when you lose your job – whatever the reason.What I’m going to describe is my version of what I believe you are going through, how it affects you, how it may affect your family or loved ones and what you can do about regaining your self confidence.

• Top interview answers
  Knowing the top interview answers to the common interview questions is what makes the difference between a winner and a loser. You need good information. Getting a new job doesn't just happen by itself and neither does it happen by just trusting to luck!

  Like so many other things, what you need to know can be learned...in the same way that you need certain skills for doing any particular job, then being good at interviews is a job that needs certain skills to be successful! Learn how to answer any interview question that just about any interviewer may possibly throw at you! And when you’re prepared for that, the rest is easy!

• Finding unadvertised jobs
  Unadvertised jobs, hidden jobs and unpublished vacancies; we all know they are there so don't listen to anybody who says they aren't - the fact is these jobs are just unannounced at this stage. What happens is that a new process starts, or someone is leaving in the future and this requires an assessment of staffing needs. Very often the need is determined but the job is not (yet) publicized and so the job remains unadvertised. So no-one else knows about them and when you're over 50 this is one of the most effective routes for you.

• Working from home
  Working from home is a dream for many people, but it can be tough. One of the easiest ways to start online is by working as an affiliate.

  What really interests me now is how much easier is working from home to find a home based business to replace your previous full time income.

So, if you are over 50 and looking for a new job, you may well mistakenly think that everybody is against you and that there are no suitable jobs for older workers like you, but I hope these guest articles have thrown some light on what the older workers, people like you who are over 50, can actually do to help themselves get back to work - even if you took early retirement.

You are here: Over 50 And Looking For A Job

Return To Your Career Change Home Page or go back to read my page about Returning To Work for some help with getting your job search under way when you're over 50.

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