Over 50 and Looking for Work?

Older adults looking for work can often face challenges unique to their position.

According to Barry Witkin, CEO of Prime50 Employment Services, “Employers still think that they are dealing with a 50+ person that existed 50 years ago and not realizing that the 50+ person of today is younger looking, healthier, has longevity, and wants to continue their careers.”

If you are over 50 and looking for work, here are some things you should keep in mind.

Showcase Your Technology Skills:

Don’t give an employer a reason to buy into the myth that older workers aren’t technology savvy. Focus on the tech skills you have. Showcase your abilities to use and learn new programs by drawing on your past experiences and your ability to learn new processes. If your skills aren’t where they should be, update your computer skills and learn how to use the common technology tools of today. Computers and new technologies are part of the workplace, and whether you are young or old, you should be able to use them effectively.

Focus on Your Experience and Loyalty:

According to Witkin, older workers have a vast amount of experience and knowledge and could be great mentors to the younger employee. He adds they are loyal and will not leave a job as the younger generation is doing today after two years or so.

Stress your experience and your ability to hit the floor running. If you’ve worked for a company for a large number of years, focus on the positive changes you made, the skills you learned, and your loyalty.

Show employers that hiring you makes sense. Witkin says that older workers know how to deal with change and stress and won`t panic in crucial situations because they have all of these life/work experiences from the past to rely on.

Draw upon your life experiences to show potential employers how you’ve managed situations in the past, and how you can use those skills in the future to benefit the workplace.

Get Out There:

You have a world of experience that just can’t be had in a classroom. Get out there and make use of your experiences. If you’re motivated to continue your career, make sure you stress that to a potential employer. Show them that you are willing to learn new things and help others around you with your experience. With the aging population, demographics and the future are in your favor. According to Witkin, the future holds great things for the worker who is 50+. He foresees that employers “will recognize that all the perceptions they had about the 50+ workforce are all wrong. They will embrace them by recruiting them and retaining them and create policies to allow them to work under quite different conditions and terms than they would have not considered before.”

Being an older adult looking for work can have its advantages. Make sure you showcase your work experience, loyalty, abilities, and your desire to work. You’ve got a lot to offer potential employers so make sure they know it.

Didn’t Get The Job? What To Do Now

You sent your resume to a company, and they interviewed you. You thought everything had gone well, but they haven’t called you back and you just know you didn’t get the job. What do you do now?

Don’t Panic:

There might still be hope. Sometimes a company offers the job to someone else, but they don’t accept it. And that process can take a little time. They offer the job, the person takes a few days to think about, they get back to the company telling them they don’t want the job, and the company has to re-assess their applicants now that their top choice has changed his or her mind.

Re-Energize:

This is a tough time for you. Take a day off from job hunting. Go window shopping, go for a drive, or an inexpensive night out with friends.. Recharge your batteries. One day away from your job search likely won’t hurt your chances to find another job. And it might do wonders for your self-esteem, your energy, and your drive to continue.

Re-Evaluate:

Go over the interview in your mind. Don’t do it as a critique of yourself, but look at it in a constructive way. Try to remember the questions they asked you and how you replied them. Is there anything that you missed that would have really helped showcase your skills? Did you ramble on because you were nervous? Work on those skills with a friend by role-playing the interview. The more comfortable you are, the better you will do next time. Remember to take other things into consideration too. Were you dressed properly for the interview? Were you prepared by knowing your skills and work history? Were you confident? The good news is that you can work on all of this before your next interview. There are lots of places online and off where you can gain helpful interview tips and suggestions. Check them out.

Stay Positive:

Try to see the interview that didn’t succeed in getting you a job as a life experience. It might not seem like it now, but you’re gaining more experience doing interviews, and each time you do another one, you should be more and more comfortable. You will have experience in answering their questions and you will know your past work history inside out. Try to see it as practice for the job you really want. Every interview you have takes you one step closer to finding a job while giving you a chance to practice your interviewing skills.

Don’t be hard on yourself. Nearly everyone at some point or another has been in your situation. The trick is to stay positive and forge ahead.

Don’t Give Up:

Hit the job fairs, check out the newspapers and the job ads online, and network. If you want to find a job, you must apply. And applying to as many jobs as you can that you are interested in and qualified for is your best chance at getting a job.

Using a Recruiter to Find a Job

Going to a recruiter when you’re looking for a job is a good way to expand your circle of opportunities. Recruiters work with both job seekers and employers to fill jobs.

Recruiters are paid by the employer once the position is filled and held by the job seeker for a certain amount of time. It is in the best interest of the recruiter to find someone who is a great fit for the job as their reputation and the client’s satisfaction relies on the quality of the job seeker.

Job seekers go to recruiters because recruiters often have a roster of jobs that need filling quickly. There is no charge to job seekers and because of a recruiter’s skill and experience, they can usually present the job seeker with an opportunity that is very close to what they are looking for.

If you are considering going to a recruiter for your job search, keep these suggestions in mind.

Before You Look for a Recruiter:

Know what kind of job you want. Know the geographical area you’d like to work in, and what sort of salary range you are expecting. These are all things your recruiter will ask you, so be prepared.

Have an updated resume. Your recruiter can’t sell you to an employer if they don’t know what they’ve got.

Know that it might take some time, especially if you place your resume with a recruiter who doesn’t necessarily have an opening that currently suits your needs.

Have a job search plan. Recruiters won’t do everything for you and unfortunately, they might not be able to find you a job. You need a backup plan.

Finding the Right Recruiter for You:

There are many recruiters to choose from. Visit their websites to get an idea of the jobs they are looking to fill. You might want to consider looking for a recruiter in the geographic area in which you want to work as they might have more experience in dealing with local employers and might be more aware of who is hiring, etc.

Many recruiters specialize in certain industries or skill sets. For example, there are recruiters that fill jobs in the automotive industry or in the financial sector and recruiters that fill bilingual positions. If you have a specific skill set, it might help your job search to seek out a recruiter that can help promote you the best. Often, they will be more knowledgeable in the work that is done by certain trades or industries and can understand your past career history better.

It’s also important to be clear with your recruiter about what kind of job you are looking for. If you’ve been clear, and they are suggesting jobs that don’t appeal to you or aren’t at all what you want, they may not be the recruiter you want working for you. A recruiter that just wants to fill a job and get paid is not what you are looking for. You are looking for someone who has both the employer’s interest and the job seeker’s interest at heart and wants to find the best person for the job.

Help Your Recruiter:

When you go on an interview that a recruiter has set up for you, you are not only representing yourself, but the recruiter’s agency as well. Do you best to represent them well and in a professional manner. It will go a long way to showing the recruiter you appreciate their efforts.

Since recruiters get paid by the employer only after they’ve filled the job, recruiters can go to a lot of expense before the job is filled. Make sure you only go on interviews and apply for jobs you are interested in and are serious about. If a recruiter presents you with an opportunity you aren’t sure about, ask for more information and clarify the terms before you go ahead with it.

There are lots of advantages to working with a recruiter. You have someone else looking for work for you, they have access to a lot of resources you might not, and they know who’s hiring. Talking to friends or colleagues who have used recruiters in the past is a great way to see what services recruiters can offer you. Remember that recruiters only get paid if they fill the job, so there should be no cost to you in finding you a job.

Comparing Job Offers

If you’re in the enviable position of having to choose one job offer from several, here are some things you should consider when evaluating the offers.

The Job Itself:

One of the top things to consider is the job itself. Which job seems like a better fit for you? Which one do you think you will enjoy more? Which do you see yourself doing on a daily basis? It’s important to place a lot of emphasis on the actual job because that’s where you’ll be spending forty hours (maybe more) every week. Consider the things you enjoyed in previous jobs and those tasks you rather you didn’t have to do. How does each job offer compare?

The Salary and Benefits:

This factor, when considering multiple job offers is important as well. Most job offers you will receive will likely be in approximately the same salary range but where they may vary greatly is in the benefits. When you are considering benefits, remember to judge them based on what you and your family will use. If they offer tuition reimbursement and you don’t plan on returning to school, it’s not really a benefit to you. But do consider the value of benefits like vacation time, retirement funding, profit-sharing, overtime policies, medical/dental benefits, etc.

The Location:

If you are considering some job offers that are located in a different part of the country than you are in now, remember to factor in the cost of living and relocation, as well as the emotional costs of being far away from family and friends. Consider the whole family. How suitable are neighbourhoods and schools? What is the crime rate like? All these things can affect your quality of life and should be considered if you are thinking of relocating.

Location is important even if all your job offers are in the same geographic area. How long will your commute be? Will you need to move to make the commute more manageable?

The Company:

When you are consider job offers from various companies, you should have a good idea of how each company operates. What is the corporate culture like? How long have they been in business and what is their reputation like? All these should be considered strongly as they can greatly impact you in the future. If you don’t know enough about the company, take some time to research it before you say yes to a job offer. Remember too to consider what opportunities exist for the company to grow, what markets they are looking towards, and their financial stability. Also, look at your potential for advancement, how the company promotes its staff, and how they treat their employees.

Your Instincts:

When you are evaluating different job offers, it’s important to listen to yourself. Consider others’ suggestions and factor in the critical elements mentioned above, but remember that you will be the one doing this job every day. If you don’t think you’d like the job, that’s important to remember and should be weighed as heavily as the salary and benefits and other factors.

What You Should Do:

Make a list of everything that’s important to you in a job and rank your job offers according to how they fulfil those needs. Consider the elements mentioned above and others you may find that matter to you. By identifying those things that are critical to you, you’ll be able to evaluate each job offer in the same way. Draw up a chart and see how your job offers fare. Remember to also consider how you feel personally about each job offer. Good luck!

Four Questions to Ask at a Job Interview

A job interview is the opportunity for a company to determine if your skills and experience are a good fit for the position they have open. It’s also a good chance for you to see if you are a good fit for the company. You’ll likely have questions about the company and how they work, and you’ll get some of your answers during the interview. You should be prepared to ask some questions of the interviewer yourself, usually at the end of the job interview. Try to think of questions that you are genuinely interested in hearing the answer to. Make sure questions are relevant and about the company or position.

If you can’t think of any questions you’d like to ask, here are a few and why you should ask them.

What is it like working for this company? What is the culture like?

You want to work for a company that has a similar mindset as you. You also want to know how the employees are treated. This open-ended question is a great way to get a feel for the company through the interviewer. If you don’t get a very positive vibe, consider it a sign.

Can you describe an average or typical day in this position?

This is a great question that helps define the position for you. You’ll get an idea of how much time is expected to be spent on different tasks and what tasks you should be familiar with. The answer to this question will also help you decide if you really want this job.

How do you see this position evolving in the future?

This will give you a good idea of what your role is in the company and what your opportunities for growth are while performing this job. If you are looking for a job that will allow you to move up and take on more responsibility, you need to know that. You also need to know if the position looks like it will never evolve to anything more than it is.

How soon do you expect to make a hiring decision?

This is a great question to ask towards the end of the interview. It gives you a time frame on which to base your follow-up calls and an idea on when to move on. It’s important to know when they’ll be hiring because you likely have other job prospects you are pursing and you need to be able to evaluate them accordingly.

Asking the right questions at a job interview is a chance for you to get a feel for the company and the position. By asking questions, you appear interested in the job and you tell the interviewer you have put time and effort into determining if you are a good fit for this job.

How to Handle the Group Interview

Facing a group interview or multiple interviewers can be a stressful ordeal if you haven’t prepared for it. Here are some tips and suggestions for you on how to deal with multiple interviewers at once.

Be Prepared:

It’s critical at a group interview to be prepared. There will likely be a panel of interviewers from different areas of the company that will quiz you. Each person will probably have a particular interest. An HR manager might want to know if you are a good fit for the company, the team leader of the office you are interviewing for might want to see your personality and if it fits with those currently working for him or her, and a supervisor’s goals for the interview might be there to assess your skills.

By keeping this in mind, you can make sure that, during your interview, you showcase your skills, your personality, and your ability to be a part of the team.

Do Your Homework:

Because you will be interviewed by multiple people, it’s critical that you’ve prepared. Make sure you fully understand the job description and what will be required of you should you get the job. Make sure you know your skills inside out and how they can be tied back to the position being offered. You should also know how the company works, its culture, and how they are structured.

Be Confident:

Being interviewed by a panel of interviewers is stressful stuff and the company wants to know if you can handle it. Practice a panel interview with a few friends before you have to do the real thing. Simulate the type of questions you might be asked and get a feel for how it is to be interviewed by different people. This is your opportunity to be interviewed by everyone at once. It could actually save you time and stress. By being confident and having the right mindset, you can turn this into a positive experience.

Focus:

While at the interview, make sure you make eye contact with everyone. Take the time to respond to every question with thought and concentration. It’s easy to be distracted with others there. Look directly at the person who asked you the question, but take the time to also make eye contact with the other interviewers. However, your attention should be predominately focussed on the person who posed you the question.

Things to Remember:

It’s critical at a group interview that you treat everyone with the same respect. You don’t necessarily know who the person making the final decision will be and it’s just good manners. The goal is to appeal to as many people as possible, so bring your smile, your positive attitude, and be prepared (bring extra resumes too.) By being able to handle everyone’s questions with poise and skill, you can overcome the stress surrounding group interviews and turn your interview into a job offer.

What to Do When You’re Late for an Interview

It’s a nightmare scenario: your car broke down, your alarm clock didn’t go off, or your bus couldn’t get through the traffic. Now, you’re running late for the job interview you worked so hard to get. It’s tempting to give up altogether. After all, why would any company hire a candidate who couldn’t even make the interview on time?

The truth is, employers understand that things don’t always go according to plan. Yes, being late makes a bad first impression, but if you handle the issue well, there’s no reason why it should ruin your chances of landing a job. If you do find yourself running late for an interview, don’t give up. Here are four interview tips that might help you save the situation.

Stay Calm

Maintaining your composure is one of the most important things you can do when arriving late to an interview. Otherwise, you’ll simply compound the problem by letting yourself become flustered, which will only lead to being in the wrong headspace later on.

Accept that you’re going to be late: it is something you no longer have any control over. What you do have control over is the state you’re in when you get there. Arriving a few seconds sooner won’t do you any favors if you’re out of breath, disorganized, and stressed when you step into the interview room. Instead, take a breath, compose yourself, and get there as quickly as you reasonably can.

Communicate

If you’re able to, send your interviewer a quick email or give them a call to let them know you’re running late. Doing so serves several important functions, not the least of which is letting them know you still plan to attend and that they shouldn’t cross you off their list altogether. It also demonstrates that you’re a professional and you respect the time they’ve set aside for you. Your message should contain a short apology (see below) as well as a reasonable estimation of when you will arrive.

Apologize, Just the Right Amount

It’s important to apologize when arriving late to an interview, but don’t overdo it. If you’re only a few minutes behind schedule, a brief mention is enough. Any more and you’ll simply draw unnecessary attention to the issue, setting a negative tone for the rest of the job interview.

Quickly supplying a reason is often a good tactic as well, since it will show your interviewer that the situation was beyond your control, and that tardiness is generally out of character for you. Apologize gracefully (“very sorry, the traffic was terrible”) and then move on with the rest of the interview. Needless to say, if being late was your fault, just stick to an apology… and try not to make the same mistake again!

Be Ready to Reschedule

Sometimes, being late for an interview may mean you miss a window. Perhaps your interviewer only had a few minutes to set aside for you, and now they must head to an important meeting. It doesn’t mean all is lost! If you suspect you might not have enough time, let your interviewer know you are ready and willing to attend at another time. You can even supply a range of dates: “I do apologize for having missed you today, but if you’re free any time in the next week or two I would be very happy to attend then instead.”

Arriving late to a job interview can make you feel as though you’ve blown your shot at getting the position, but it’s notthe end of the world. Follow the interview tips above and you stand a good chance of being able to salvage the situation. After all, everyone’s late sometimes—it’s how you deal with being late that counts.

Tips to Dress for Success

Sources say that up to 55% of another person’s perception of you is based on how you look, so make the right impression at your interview. Although dressing and grooming appropriately may not get you the job, it will give you a competitive edge and help to make a positive first impression. No matter what, always dress professionally for an interview!

General Tips Checklist

• Wear professional and conservative clothing.
• Ensure that clothing is clean, pressed and not too tight.
• Wear conservative shoes that are clean and polished.
• Choose accessories that complement your clothing rather than distract from it.
• Remove facial and body piercings.
• Cover visible tattoos to avoid distraction.
• Keep fragrances and jewelry minimal.
• Make sure your hair is clean and conservative in color and style.

Tips for Women

• Acceptable dress includes a suit (skirt or slacks) or conservatively tailored dress.
• Skirts and dresses should be knee-length or longer.
• Avoid blouses or sweaters that are transparent, tight fitting, have low necklines, revealing waistlines or details that detract from your face. Shoulders should be covered.
• Perfume should never be strong. A fragrance can cause an allergic reaction or offend the interviewer. When in doubt, do not wear perfume.
• Apply natural-looking makeup and clear nail polish. This keeps the focus on the interview.
• Do not carry a purse with a briefcase. Choose one or the other.
• Wear flat shoes or low pumps in colors that avoid making your feet a focal point. Be sure your shoes are clean and polished. Avoid open-toed shoes since they are often associated with social agendas.
• Avoid dangling earrings, and wear no more than one ring per hand and a dress watch.

 Tips for Men

• Wear a matching suit in navy, black or gray (pinstripe or solid), or a navy blazer and gray dress slacks.
• Select a white or a light blue dress shirt that contrasts with the jacket and/or tie. Typically, arms should be covered to the wrist.
• Ties should be made of silk or a silk-like fabric. The tie should coordinate with your jacket and pants, but it should contrast with the color of your shirt.
• Socks should be calf-length or above the calf. Choose colors such as dark blue, black or gray.
• Select lace-up (not slip-on) dress shoes. The color should be dark or should blend with your pants.
• Select a leather belt that visually blends with or matches your shoes.
• Make sure your haircut is short and you are clean shaven.
• Minimize jewelry. Avoid a necklace. Wear no more than one ring per hand and a dress watch.
• A full-length coat can be worn over your suit, but avoid casual coats.

Cologne should never be strong. A fragrance can cause an allergic reaction or offend the interviewer(s). When in doubt, do not wear cologne.