Yesterday I attended an AARP sponsored job fair for unemployed people age 50 and up. I haven’t had to get up so early and dress so nicely in a long time, and it felt strange. It started at 9:00 in a city about an hour away, so I got to experience rush hour traffic again as well, and I have to say I was OK with that. Skills long unused came right back as I maneuvered my way down a familiar freeway with all the normal stop and go spots.
I arrived about 8:30 and the huge parking lot of the civic center was filling up. Inside a couple of hundred people just like me were already in line. By the time they opened the doors at 9 there were a few hundred more behind me. All of them dressed in suits, looking quite employable. All of them over 50. All of them unemployed.
I talked at length to a couple of women, one used to work in the federal government’s drug enforcement and left to raise her kids. Now divorced and years away from any work experience she can’t find anything. She’d welcome a receptionist job if it paid for her health insurance. Another has been a lawyer for many years and doesn’t want to do that anymore, but can’t find anything else.
The speaker, a volunteer with AARP started out by stating that we might be sitting there feeling “a little bit old and a lot beaten up” as we searched for work. All around me heads nodded. She told us to stop feeling sorry for ourselves, that we had a wealth of experience and employers wanted that experience. But that we had to stop automatically closing doors, that some of us were more inflexible than we realized and we needed to show that we were open to ideas and new things, not just focus on who we were and what we did in our old job. We need to show a prospective employer what we can do for them NOW, not what we might have done for someone else some time ago. And she said the young recruiters didn’t want to see us as like their moms and dads, they wanted to see us as more like them.
I have an interview next Monday for a position that would take me back to my old line of work. I’m going to practice being hip and young and open and inventive and creative over the weekend.
Because I don’t want to be in the nicely dressed older and unemployed demographic anymore.
Change Is Hard 
August 26, 2010 at 10:30 am
What these young whippersnappers need to realize is that the older generations have a much better work ethic! We didn’t come from the “everyone gets a trophy” philosophy. If we lost, we cried. No trophy for you! Work harder next time 🙂
Good luck at your job interview. I think you’ve already got the open, inventive & creative part down pat…just practice the young & hip stuff 🙂
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August 26, 2010 at 11:09 am
Good luck on the interview. I hope the speaker had some actual useful tips on being thought of as more like the younger interviewers.
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August 26, 2010 at 11:39 am
GOOD LUCK ON MONDAY! It sounds like that was a great energizer in a way to hear all that, that automatically closing doors is a hard thing because it happens so easily, at least that is how it seems to me ;-).
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August 26, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Good luck with your interview! I am sure you can be hip! As Sara said you’re already open, creative and inventive! Any employer would be so lucky to have you!
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August 26, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Thanks guys. No Ellen, the speaker did not give us any specific ideas…just told us what not to be. I was thinking the same thing! LOL
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August 26, 2010 at 8:39 pm
I would be in so much trouble! I don’t even know the language of the young and hip anymore. When did years of experience change from being valued? At 50, aren’t we much more level headed and flexible than we were at 30? Oh gosh! Good luck with your interview!
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August 26, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Well, I don’t understand what being young and hip has to do with being a good worker, and I’m in my 30’s. Course, maybe that’s because my husband says I’ve never been young. LOL I think that reliability and a good work ethic would rank higher to me than if I were doing the hiring. I hope the interview goes well on Monday. I’ll look forward to hearing about it next week.
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August 28, 2010 at 8:49 am
Good luck on Monday! I’m sure you’ll do well.
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August 28, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Thanks Buzzy! 🙂
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August 28, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Dawn, I’ve said any number of time in comments to your posts that I think you’re fabulously creative, so no worries there. You, of course, know that pretending to be hip isn’t likely to help and would undoubtedly make me look like an idiot. Ya want to know the real reason why employers like younger employees? They’re cheaper, they usually don’t have families already, and they work long hours out of misguided belief that the employer actually appreciates dedication and loyalty.
I’m terribly sorry that you’re having to look for a job in today’s economy, ’cause things are tough all over. I have a large number of friends in similar situations and have some idea of how hard it is. I’m incredibly fortunate that my employer continues to value what I do, in no small part because there are only a tiny handful of people in the entire world who do what I do and a consequently tiny handful of potential employers.
But I have confidence in you. You’ve reinvented yourself before and you can certainly do it again. Don’t give up! Fingers crossed…
Jim
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August 28, 2010 at 3:12 pm
(Not a real comment…just an effort to have your site accept my new…and functional…email address.)
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August 28, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Thanks Sheltie-Jim!
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August 31, 2010 at 6:55 pm
I agree with what SheltieJim said. I think the speaker could have been better. It is a tough market out there (here). I don’t know if I have ever been “hip”. If I tried to be hip it wouldn’t work. I don’t even want to be “hip”.
There were some good ideas from speaker. I’m glad you shared.
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