Job Hunting Blues and Truth for over 40

Susan Brannon
2 September 2011

Those who are looking for a job all know that the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics says that the current unemployment rate is 9.1 percent.  I believe that it is higher because the number does not include those who gave up, those who are not on unemployment, those who work out of their homes in the black to survive and those who are homeless without a home.  I imagine that the real number is more like 11-13%, but that number would scare anyone, and therefore it is not published.

Of course, this makes it harder to find a stable and secure job, that dream job in the field that we are trained in.  How about the newly divorced "mom" who never really had to work and has minimal skills?  They are up against a big wall with a societal mindset that they are "losers" and went off somewhere.  This is unsaid of course, but it is felt.  In some cultures the divorced women are shunned and thrown out of the communities.

In the U.S. some of the people in HR and managers of corporations, say that  "the older folks messed up and they made bad decisions and that is why they are where they are today, by loosing their homes, their jobs and maybe their cars."  I have also had conversations with some corporate managers that said, "We view this as a "weeding" the good workers were able to keep their jobs, and the bad workers lost their jobs" 

Really?  The logic is to "hire those that already have the jobs"  Ummm.  Are they trying to tell me that the accountant next door was not a good accountant?  She only worked for almost 20 years and the company laid off most of the near retired workers because they were not good workers?  Are they trying to tell me that the nurse down the street, was not a good nurse?  She is the kindest and sweetest person that I have met in a long time.  She lost almost everything, her retirement dropped so she can't retire, she was laid off so she makes no income, she is a 99er, and her unemployment stopped. It is a good thing that she paid off her home, now she worries about food and property tax. She told me, "They are just not hiring older people, they want the new and younger graduates who have no experience and can pay them less." 

I hear these stories over and over again.  I call it "being pushed out of the market syndrome"  There are 78 million baby boomers, born from 1946 to 1964 and most plan on or have been forced to retire late.

The situation gets more complicated:  For instance, f you send a blind resume' online, you "look desperate for a job vs. choosing a good career" By sending your resume' you can become "blacklisted" and will never have a chance on being considered for that company.  Employers document applicant behavior, decide what resumes to review and which ones to ignore....permanently.  Although, they might not admit it....to you.

Here are some typical "blacklisting" processes:

Resumes' If you send resumes for various jobs to the same company throughout the years and your job background does not match up, back to seven years, they can flag you and reject your application.

Needs - If you send resumes' and they regularly do not meet the company needs, you may get flagged.

Submissions -  If you apply to different roles at once, and non related roles - you will be seen as a desperate job seeker and be thrown out of the pile all together.

Profiling:

LinkedIn - They will compare your resume' to your profile on LinkedIn, if they don't match they will think that you are not telling the truth.

Behavior - They will look you up on Google, Twitter or Facebook.  If you have drunken photos online or other negative engagements that are not aligned with the company...you will get blacklisted.

So, you try for that job, and feel that you are capable of doing multiple positions if you apply for those positions that you qualify for and would not mind, they will view your excitement in the wrong way.

If you have been looking for a job for over a year - that is a red flag.  The HR thinks that there is something wrong if you cannot find a job in that time period. The reality is that I have heard it all, from being over experienced, to not being able to pay enough, to the applicant getting bored, to not knowing enough.  I have heard the person does not fit the company culture, we need to hire younger people to train them into managers, older people are too slow, they do not catch up fast enough, they are behind the times, how will the colleagues feel working with a "mom".



This article is not intended to get you depressed, but to help you to better understand the mindset of those who are doing the hiring.  The trick is to find a company that does not work this way instead of wasting your time looking at the wrong places.  The trick is not to act desperate (although many of us are), we have to play the game in order to gain positive results. The article is also intended to give you some heads up, that you are not alone and what you may have had the "feeling" that this was going on, is real, your feeling is right-on.

Just take the reality, work with it and don't give up!
If you are over 40 and have any tips, please share them with us!